


How to Save a Life

by ayoungvein



Category: All Time Low, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Of Mice & Men (Band), Panic! at the Disco, Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-03 13:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayoungvein/pseuds/ayoungvein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First and foremost, this is not a love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, people expressed their curiosity in a Harry Potter AU. I have no idea how good this is going to be or how it will turn out, but I thought I'd try it out. The prologue is the ending, and the chapters will all lead up to it blah blah blah you know how this works. Hit me up on my tumblr if you end up liking it.

“Do you believe in God?” His words, emanating from his peony pink lips nearly a year ago sound just as clear as when they had first been uttered. He can still remember the way his face had looked that day, ashen and stoic against the swishing of the lake at their feet. He remembers the ebb and flow of the undertow, filmily lapping at their ankles and kissing the bone.

“No,” Gabe remembers his own self saying, laughing and watching the way the breeze played with the other boy’s hair. “Why do you ask?”

He had shrugged. “Do you believe in anything?”

Gabe had laughed again. “No.”

Now, looking back at that moment, Gabe realizes the significance in those words. After all, no one laughs at God when they’re dying.

And now, nearly reduced to rubble, Hogwarts still persists as one of the most magnificent establishments across the country with its oblique wards and lofty turrets. They sustain proudly in the chill of the lethal night. Even nearly reduced to rubble, Hogwarts stands stagnant in the hallowed dusk as though it, too, were riddling Gabe with a leap of faith.

“It’s all been a lie,” the boy in front of him mutters, “All of it.”

What’s been a lie, Gabe hasn’t the faintest. He stands there, back pressed to the decrepitated castle wall, feeling the grime and dust fall to his shoulders like a rain of ashes in the midst of the oncoming storm. He stands there, pressed against the derelict castle, staring at his wand a whole three meters away from him.

Meanwhile, the other boy’s wand prods lightly against Gabe’s temple. “I’m going to make this moment monumental,” he whispers into the still night.

Around them-- nothing.

“I’m going to make us legends, you and me.”

Gabe grits his teeth, glowering at a face he had once looked upon with so much respect. “You’re a fucking t-shirt at best,” he spits.

The boy’s wand forces its way further and further against Gabe’s temple, until he can feel the warm and sticky sensation of blood running down his cheek and dribbling onto his lip where the taste of iron suffocates him.. Gabe tries not to flinch and show weakness, but he quails beneath the smirk of the older boy.

“Let’s see where it gets you tonight, Gabe, being the son of the great Diego Saporta.”

And to think, Gabe thought he had finally made peace with that.


	2. From Scarsborough to Bristol, with Love

(Pete Wentz to Gabe Saporta  
August Eighteenth, Summer of 1975)

 

Gabe Saporta,

They say, there’s a certain sort of unatoned happiness that comes with particular friends. I know you’ll think me a sod for saying so, but I don’t deny that one bit.

Wish you were here. After all, you’re MISSING OUT on a very wonderful, raucous vacation-- ah yes, it’s complete with big words, too. I know what you’re thinking, “But, Pete, grammar can’t be fun in the slightest.” But that’s elementary, my dear Gabriel. Grammar can be very fun; in fact, it’s perhaps something you’d like to start utilizing in these letters of yours. I can’t tell you how many times I weep at night at the thought of the abysmal things you do to commas.

But that’s by the by, for you’ll probably skim the entire beginning paragraph to try and get to the juicy gossip. That’s where you’ll fail, I suppose. I’ve not an ounce of juicy gossip here. Bristol is the same as always, boring and monochrome and definitely nothing Gabe Saporta would be missing out on.

I hope Scarsborough hasn’t turned you into a stranger and you forget all about your mates back home. After all, Ryan would be utmost devastated; in fact, I think he cries himself to sleep, as well (no thanks to your letters, me thinks).

How is Scarsborough? And Alex? I heard he’s been a right bummer all summer. I hope you two are keeping your noses clean up there; after all, I haven’t the gold to bail you lot out of jail, so stop terrorizing the citizens up there. Actually, that sounds like a spiffing plan, if you ask me (which, of course, you never do): come back home and get arrested. At least down here, I’ll be able to watch you rattle the ball-and-chain just to annoy the guards like I know the two of you would do.

I’ve been quite productive since your leave. Managed to finish the homework, organize my trunk (can you believe I’d been keeping broken quills from first year? I shudder to think what your trunk looks like.), and read eight books. It’s rather serene to be able to read without an obnoxious mouth chewing in your ear or pillows flying at your face for, “Taking all the fun out of the party, Petey.”

I miss you, nonetheless. Both of you.

Hurry home,  
Pete Wentz

(From Gabe Saporta to Pete Wentz,  
August Nineteenth, Summer of 1975)

 

Mister Peter Has too Many Middle Names Wentz  
Probably in the Fetal Position  
Dead Somewhere in a Cupboard

I’m wounded, Petey. Absolutely WOUNDED. How can you accuse me and my lovely partner in not-crime of getting arrested? That’s blasphemy, that is. Why, our noses are squeaky clean. In fact, Filch would probably hang our noses up in the Trophy Room to admire with that cat of his because they’re just THAT clean.

And I’ll also have you know, I never skip a single precious word of yours. I treasure these letters. Keep them snug tight under me pillow for when it gets lonely at night. Those oh so lonely nights where it’s only me and my right hand and oh BLOODY HELL ALEX IS BEING CHASED BY PIDGEONS.

The sodding git’s been terrorizing them for the better half of the day, mind you; and now they’ve finally manned the battlements and retaliated. It looks like they’re winning, too. He’s squawking more than they are. They shall win the battle, and they probably shall win the war, as well! Though, I don’t blame him for hating pigeons; they really rattle my bollocks, for some reason.

I’d also like to say, BOO, YOU PRIG, for satisfying your undying urges to be all neat and clean and everything I’m not. How dare you clean your trunk and not offer your trunk cleaning services to moi. I’m WOUNDED. In fact, I might cry meself to sleep at night just thinking of YOU and YOUR letter.

Oh, how the tables turn, Sir Peter Lewis of the Wentzes.

And if you’re ever dry in the gossip well, feel no restrictions on watering it with some good ol’ Saporta gossip. We’ve got everything! From Ricardo marrying that great tart, Leeza (arranged oh so lovingly by her dearest mummy) and Uncle Ryland being blasted off the tapestry (that one interrupted Sunday tea, I’ll have you know), well we’re never dry in that hole. Speaking of holes, ask Alex how his is! Heard it’s filled with birds- and not the good kind either.

Scarsborough, for the most part, is jolly good and all. Other than Alex’s current battle with the pigeons- but that’s neither here nor there, for Alex is the git of gits and deserves to be pecked where ought no pecker should go. We’re close to the shore, so you can hear the sound of the waves against the shore at night. And the sound of the gulls in the morning. It’s what you’d call picturesque. I just call it paradise.

Wish you were here, too, you sod,  
Gabe (&Alex)

PS, Alex thinks a pigeon nipped his arsehole.

(From Alex Gaskarth to Pete Wentz  
August Nineteenth, Summer of 1975)

 

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater,

Just read through Gabe’s letter. Would like to add that I was not nipped in the arsehole by a pigeon, rather the pigeon pecked me bum. Completely different. Two very SEPARATE entities. Nothing’s gone near me arsehole, and don’t let him convince you otherwise. ESPECIALLY when he talks about that bloke on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team whom I don’t fancy. I mean, Pete, he’s a BLOKE.

How’s good ol’ Bristol? Miss me home and me bed, but Scarsborough with Mum and Dad isn’t that bad. Gabe’s been an absolute menace, though, even if he tries to play up the routine that charms all the birds at school. Last night, we rented a stellar motorbike and drove through town on it. We both wanted to charm it and add some certain, ah, attributes that would enable flight; but me dad reprimanded us and reminded that, “Charming of Muggle objects is a violation of Code 63, Act C, Paragraph D,” and Merlin’s baggy y-fronts did he take the mickey out of us. It almost wasn’t worth the drive through town.

But you missed it. You really did. Gabe tried picking up this one bird on our nightly excursion. This real stellar one, too. Big tits and a nice bum. The whole package, really. Offered her a ride in the motorbike, told her he’d let her do more than ride just that. It was all a real larf from where I’m sitting behind him, arms wrapped around his waist.

Finally, when she’s looking up and ready for a bit of a snog, I lean over and whisper in Gabe’s ear, “Wotcher, babe, you promised me a good, hard shag tonight.”

Her face!

I nearly lost it. Gabe was so peeved, I thought he’d curse me right then and there. But it was worth it. She walked away in a huffy, and I got my turn at driving like I’d wanted in the first place.

Hope you’re well,  
Alex

(From Pete Wentz to Alex Gaskarth,  
August Twenty-First, Summer of 1975)

 

The Very Birdless Alex  
Or Perhaps Wrapped Around a Pigeon  
At the Moment

I spit my cocoa everywhere reading what you did to Gabe. So I hope you’re satisfied: staining one of my better shirts. You know, Weird Sisters t-shirts are very rare souvenirs (not that I am hinting for one at all. Not. In. The. Slightest). I bet he was barmy, that night. Though, I would like to ask him where he was intending to bring said bird, being that your parents are sharing the place on the beach with you two.

And as for you, leave the pigeons alone, Alexander William Gaskarth. It’s not good for a young boy’s health to be getting peckers inside his bum hole. In fact, it makes for a rather uncomfortable and cranky experience, though this isn’t from personal experience.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, who is this bloke on your Quidditch Team you fancy? Bugger, there‘s seven of you, isn‘t there? Well, it can‘t be Jardine because she’s a bird, and they just don’t suit your fancy, apparently. She must be nothing more than a beard in all your conquests, eh? Is it Barakat? Tell me it’s not Dawson: his head looks like a potato…. And tell me it’s not Merrick? He’s a bit of a prat when it comes to Quidditch, but we all know he couldn’t batter a fish. Whoever it is, though, you sneak peeks at them whizzing by. Yeah, I see you catching glances at someone through my Omnioculars. They come in handy for gandering at certain young Chasers fancying certain teammates who haven’t the slightest interest in reciprocating said fancy.

Honestly though, Alex, it’s like Gabe would say (though, this letter, by no chance, engenders Gabe Saporta as a proper role model for society), “If you want crisps, you don’t go to a fucking salad bar.” Although, I suppose that might not penetrate that thick skull of yours, so I’ll put it in Alex-terms. “No sense chasing the Quaffle if you’re looking for the Snitch.”

Say hello to the birds for me (whichever you got, pigeons or),  
Pete Wentz

(From Ryan Ross to Pete Wentz,  
August Twenty-Second, Summer of 1975)

 

P,

How’re you doing, Pete? I heard you’d been sick this month. Hope, it’s not an early flu, or we’ll be shoving Pepper Up Potion down your throat like a golden shower- quite literally. It’s better than being faced with wretched Madam Marsh back at Hogwarts. Her mental state has slowly been deteriorating ever since we stepped foot in her ward.

I’ve just been talking to Dad, or trying to, and asked if you’re going to Alex’s when they get back from Scarsborough (he wrote me). If you’d like, you’re welcome to stay a couple nights at my place until they come back. It’s awfully lonely, over here; Da’s been over-emotional- it’s the anniversary of Mum’s death. Pretty gloomy, over here, that is, if you don’t mind?

It’s been hard. I never really knew her. Mum died when I was still young, but sometimes it feels like I knew her more than I actually did. My first memory of her was when she got me a toy broomstick. I guess she had greater expectations for me that I didn’t fulfill: wanted me to be a Chaser on the Quidditch Team like she’d been. Guess she’d be happier with a kid like Alex if she ever found out how I turned out. I’d like to think she’s proud of me up there, but even I know better than that.

Enough small talk, though, how’s Bristol? Tinworth is pretty dull, especially on my end, though I’ve already explained that all to you and whatnot, I guess. Can’t wait until Alex and Gabe return home.

I can’t make this letter long. I’m sending over a parcel of chocolates to help you get better, and since Esteban’s hardly a parcel owl- best not take chances.

Get better,  
R

(From Pete Wentz to Gabe Saporta,  
August Twenty-Second, Summer of 1975)

 

Gabe,

I know this letter is off-topic from the rest of our collections, but you’ll have to forgive me. I’m being plagued by nightmares again, just like when we were in our fifth year, and I was having terrible dreams. They’re virtually the same thing. In these ones, I’m running and running down the same never-ending hallway, and when I get to the door, through the keyhole, I see a body. And when I squint, I see it’s my body.

Sorry, if this owl interrupts your beauty sleep, but I hard to get word out to you. I figured you’d like to know.

Pete

(From Pete Wentz to Ryan Ross  
August Twenty-Third, Summer of 1975)

 

Ryan,

Thanks for the chocolate. I think I’ve nearly cleaned it out. I keep telling myself my school robes won’t fit anymore, but that’s hardly a good thing, I suppose. Especially being a Wentz, as the kids in the village already whisper about my oddities. Perhaps it’d be better to be a Pureblood than half-blood, at this rate, though I couldn’t imagine keeping up with prestigious appearances. So I suppose being the joke of the Muggle village will suffice for now, eh? Bully on us, right?

I’m sorry, Ryan. I hope you stay well on the anniversary. Personally, I can’t see a son a mother would want more. You’re a good boy, Ry. You’re a great Hufflepuff, in fact. She’d be proud of you.

I’m nursing Esteban back to health as we speak. Poor bloke. He nearly collapsed when he reached my window. You sure did get me a parcel of chocolates- must’ve been HUNDREDS. And Honeydukes best? You shouldn’t have, Ry. Tell your dad I said thanks, too, and let him know I’m spiffy enough to stay over your place a few nights. Mother keeps wanting to get me out of the house, says I brood too much. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Honestly.

Keep well. See you soon,  
Pete

(From Ryan Ross to Pete Wentz,  
August Twenty-Fourth, Summer of 1975)

 

P,

Cheer up, Pete. I know the girls like the brooding and overstressed bloated chocolate fiends these days, but it doesn’t suit you. Come over at six by Floo Powder today, alright? Hope Esteban gets this to you on time!

See you,  
R

(From Gabe Saporta to Pete Wentz and Ryan Ross,  
August Twenty-Fourth, Summer of 1975)

 

Pete (& Ryan, if you’re there),

We’re finally on our way home! We’re driving to Godric’s Hollow tonight (Alex’s dad borrowed Ministry cars to keep up the vacationing Muggle façade. They’re not half bad either, pretty spacey in the back, but I think his dad violated Code 63, Act C, Paragraph LMNOP or something like that), and I’ve got to return home to Kensington Gore before I’m blasted off the family tapestry, too. I’m going to miss Scarsborough a little. I guess Alex told you about the motorbike incident?

Besides my sudden loss at a great shag that night, I did have a sudden idea. A miraculous idea! Why, I was sulking that night and ignoring that git of a friend of mine before it occurred to me. After Hogwarts, I’m going to get myself a motorbike and violate that act myself. I’m going to get a FLYING motorbike. And I know what you’re thinking, Pete, you’re thinking that’s illegal and all that. Well, yes, but it’s devilishly good-looking for any guy to be flying in a motorbike. DEVILISHLY. That must mean something, right?

Ryan, I know what time of year it is, so I’m going to put this politely: don’t worry about it. Your old lady would probably be more proud of you than mine is of me, remember. If she’s not, then she’s a sodding idiot and not worth your remembrances. Merlin, we’ve got the brooding banshees over there, now, don’t we. Pete is always brooding and writing poems. Ryan, don’t make this worse.

Actually, in hopes of making this letter a merry occurrence, I’ll propose an idea: we all create a band called The Brooding Banshees. We’ll sell out arenas, for Merlin’s sake! We might be able to even tour with Poison Toad or Stopper Death. Our first hit single will be called, ‘Don’t Smoke the Gillyweed’, but we all know this will be very ironic, right Pete? Ahahaha. Well, don’t let the world get you down, both of you.

Wise wordsmith,  
Gabe

PS, Alex would like to invite you to his place at eight o’clock sharp tomorrow. Last one there has to smoke the Gillyweed.

PPS, Pete, I got your letter. You never interrupt my sleep.

(From Pete Wentz and Ryan Ross to Gabe Saporta and Alex Gaskarth,  
August Twenty-Fifth, Summer of 1975)

 

Gabe and Alex,

Gabriel Eduardo Saporta, if you put a flame anywhere NEAR Gillyweed, I’ll have you shipped off to the Atlantic in a fish bowl. A fish bowl. And it won’t be enough for your giant ego, either, and it will be very uncomfortable. Ryan would also like to add that we’ll play only Celestina Warbeck music in there and your ears will promptly fall off.

And every time you try and butcher one of her songs with dirty lyrics, you’ll be poked and prodded by pigeons in your bum hole.

It’s worse than Azkaban, in our opinion.

Don’t worry, though, we’ll both be in Godric’s Hollow at promptly eight o’clock. Not a minute late or a minute early. Promptly. You know how I’m always prompt; I’ll make sure Ryan wakes up as early as me, then. You know it takes him hours to get ready…. Cor, he’s worse than a girl. But last time he went out without his make-up, he made children cry, so we must forgive him.

Solemnly swear to me that you’ll be up to proper expectations until you’re back home.

Love,  
Pete and Ryan

(The Boy in the Fireplace)

 

Meanwhile miles away, on a little street in Glasgow, a quaint little bungalow sat. It sat on the embankment to a meadow and towered over the tangles of ragweed and the tendrils of grass that grew sporadically across the Scottish shire. The windows had been thrown open in heat of the August afternoon, and a droning noise was issuing from the open glass which sounded scratchy and distant, even in the confines of the house.

_“Crying, waiting, hoping that you’ll come back_   
_I just can’t seem to get you off my mind.”_

The little phonograph in the corner of the sitting room skipped a beat as the needle scratched against the vinyl and the static sounds came billowing out of the speakers. He didn’t mind, though, for they stood in the center of the room, hands clasped tight and intertwined and bodies swaying gracefully in time to the music.

“No, no, no, Austin,” the voice giggled, “That’ll never work. That’s not very romantic, at all.”

“How can I be romantic?” the boy named Austin replied, “You’re my mum.”

The tall woman, who had been teaching her son to dance, released his hands and took a step back, shaking her head of red curls and looking affronted. “You said you had a girl to impress. Girls love dancing, Austin.”

“Not this girl,” he murmured.

“Oh, come then.” She took a seat on the plush red couch and patted the spot beside her, which he took without question. “What’s she like?”

“She’s pretty,” Austin said awkwardly.

Ms. Carlile laughed, “Just pretty? C’mon, son, don’t spare me the details.”

He frowned and sat there puzzled for some time before blurting out, “She’s like the Juliet to my Romeo.”

Another laugh. “Well now I _know_ you’re off your rocker. Romeo and Juliet died, and don’t think you’re leaving me that easily, dear.”

“Stories aren’t all about the ending,” Austin said defiantly.

She nodded and stood up, giving him a pat on his knee and kissing the top of his head, a routine that she treated like a mantra and never seemed to forget. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

She disappeared into the adjacent kitchen, and Austin Carlile sat in the sitting room, staring at the phonograph in the corner of the room, which was still issuing scratchy noises of Buddy Holly. Austin sighed and sat back on the plump couch, melting into the overstuffed cushions and having a sudden nostalgia for Hogwarts. With its common rooms and their plump couches and overstuffed armchairs that Austin had fallen asleep in dozens of times, homework and books on his lap and quills scattered across the floor of the common room.

“Hello?” A male voice sounded from the room.

Austin blinked and tore himself from the memory, looking around the very much empty living room.

“Hello? Aus?” The voice called again.

And that’s when Austin saw it. In the brick fireplace, there was a head floating. It wasn’t a particularly special head, either, with a mop of red curls framing his face and a pair of hazel eyes flitting about the room before they stopped on Austin’s figure at the couch, and the lips on the face contorted into a wide smile. “Wotcher, Aus?”

Austin smiled down at his friend and crawled over to the fireplace where his head was sitting. “‘Lo, Alan. How’s Stoatshead?”

“Completely shite without you, you know that,” Alan laughed, and his hair bounced with him. “And I hope you know, I’m ruining my best jacket with soot for you.”

“I’ll have Mum wash it for you. She’s been on holiday and bored. She’s been teaching me how to dance. Bloody dancing!” Austin shook his head. “Woman’s mad.”

Alan raised a brow. “On holiday? Have all the dark wizards gone on one, too, then?”

“There’s other Aurors in the Ministry besides my mum.”

“Touché.” Alan paused. “But did you read the papers?”

“Mum doesn’t subscribe to the paper. Doesn’t fancy Rita Skeeter.”

“Fair enough, but that’s besides the point,” Alan said quickly, “There’s reports of attacks, Aus. Muggleborn attacks.”

“What?!”

“Bunch of Pureblood supremacists going around and torturing Muggleborns for a bit of sport,” Alan explained, “Your mum’s knickers are gonna be in a twist when she hears about this.”

“Oi! Don’t talk about my mum’s knickers.”

“Not even the frilly ones?” Alan smirked, “Or the lacy ones?”

Austin made a face, “Al, what kind of mate are you?”

“The randy kind.”

“You’re a dirty-minded hag, you know that?” Austin shook his head.

“Ah, you fancy it.” Alan fluttered his eyelashes and puckered his lips. “Now give us a kiss.”

Austin blushed and shook his head and inched back slightly from the fireplace. The green flames surrounding Alan were hot, and Austin had nearly burned his hand when his fingers had tiptoed too close to the grate. “Shouldn’t you be in Diagon Alley for a date?”

“Just returned,” Alan declared proudly. “Maddie’s real gear.”

“She’s a Hufflepuff,” Austin reminded his friend.

Alan chuckled, “Yeah, well then she’ll have no problem finding my--”

“ _Alan_!” Ms. Carlile shrieked as she stepped back into the room with two boiling cups of tea that sloshed about. “Language!”

“Sorry, Ms. C.” Alan’s face was as red as the brick around him. “Just been telling Austin about the paper. Have you read it?”

Ms. Carlile pursed her lips. “Yes, Alan. Even if that Skeeter woman did write it.”

There was a daunting sort of silence that hung over the room. Alan apologized to Ms. Carlile one more time before vanishing, and the green flames returned to their normal shade, flickering and licking at the brick and the engulfing the coals that Austin shoveled in to feed the cannibalistic flames.

“Mum?” Austin asked delicately, but she was too lost in her own mind.

The tea lay forgotten.  


(Brothers)

 

“Agrippa’s sake, Gee, why do you keep spending your pocket money on _medical dictionaries_?”

“Sod off, Mikey. You know I want to be a Healer.”

“Well… yes,” Mikey said delicately, “but there’s a difference between healing magical maladies and….” Mikey glanced at the book his brother, Gerard, had propped open on his lap, “… _the integumentary system_?”

Gerard huffed and slammed the book closed before standing up from the bench they had sat on, right across from the second hand store Gerard had purchased the medical dictionary from. “You can learn a lot from Muggles, you know that?”

The two brothers had escaped the commotion of their home for the afternoon by wandering around the Liverpool port for some peace and quiet. Their home wasn’t usually rowdy and on most normal days, Gerard could sit in the sanctity of his bedroom and read all the Muggle terminology he pleased. However, the Way family lived above a parchment shop they owned, and Mr. Way had received an order of utmost importance (from the Ministry of Magic, themselves!). Personally, Gerard had better things to do on a summer’s day than watch the perfuming of parchment and the throngs of Ministry officials drinking chardonnay while they waited for their order to process. Their mother always went overboard with alcohol for men with badges.

“I never said you couldn’t,” continued Mikey, “but you’re not really helping Dad out, carrying that rubbish around in public.”

“What do you mean?”

Mikey wrung his hands nervously as they rounded the street corner, lined with candle shops and record shops with window displays that all caught his older brother’s eyes. “It’s like this: Dad swept Mum off her feet while she was engaged for an arranged Pureblood marriage, and they ran away together. You can’t blame them for wanting to rebuild their reputation in the community.”

“Is that why they’re catering to the Ministry like house-elves?”

“We’ve been living close to the edge for a while now. It’d be nice if we got out of that two-bedroom flat. No offense, but your snoring could wake a dragon.”

Gerard scoffed, “You’re not exactly the _Order of Merlin, First Class_ roommate either.”

“Not to mention, we can get out of this rubbish hole.” Mikey gestured to the city around them.

“I like Liverpool,” replied Gerard.

It was true, though. Gerard knew they were having financial difficulties stemming from their parents’ reputations within the magical community. It was why many customers took their business down to the competitor’s parchment shop in Birmingham, despite the reduction in quality. But Gerard had known Liverpool as his home for almost seventeen years.

He loved walking over to the wharf on hot, summery days (such as this) and sitting on a bench with his books in his lap. He liked the sounds of construction that always permeated the city from the shipyard on the Albert Dock. Liverpool had a certain place in Gerard’s heart, and he couldn’t understand why it had not affected his brother in a similar way.

“But you can’t stay in Liverpool your entire life,” Mikey argued, “There’s no opportunities for Healers, up here. It’s all down in London at St. Mungo’s.”

“I know,” Gerard sighed. There was a reason his brother was the new fifth year Ravenclaw prefect: he had wisdom that sometimes seemed beyond his age.

“Look, I promised my mates I’d floo over to Diagon Alley and meet them. Want to join?”

“Nah,” Gerard sighed as they neared the Albert Dock where a shipment was being unloaded. “You go along. I’ll be here.”

“I’ll pick you up the new issue of _The Quibbler_!” Mikey said before turning on his heels and running back towards the house.

Gerard never felt bad about not accompanying Mikey to various places. He didn’t really have any friends and took to hanging out with his brother constantly at Hogwarts, and he knew that Mikey’s friends thought of him as a ‘freak’-- even for wizard standards.

He couldn’t really explain it, but Gerard didn’t fit in anywhere. He didn’t fit in with Mikey’s Ravenclaw chums or with his own house, the Slytherins (though that might have to do with his parents’ reputation). In fact, Gerard was bullied more than once when his housemates discovered his Muggle medical dictionaries lying around, and he’d spent the better half of last year hanging upside down in the corridors by one leg.

It didn’t matter; Gerard was better off alone.

He found a good starting place in his book, leaned back on the wooden bench and began to read about the anatomy of a heart.

Across the shipyard, Gerard didn’t notice, but two boys were staring at him during a smoke break. One had a snake fang pierced in his ear, and they both unmistakably had pieces of wood tucked in their trouser pockets.

 

(25 August, 1975)

 

It was the 25th of August, 1975. The summer’s sun had finally begun to dip below the horizon, bathing the entirety of Ottery St. Catchpole in a gummy orange that cast the shadows of trees onto the sloping lawns and sent the early chirpings of the cicadas rustling through the grasses.

It was the 25th of August, 1975, and already letters had gone out across England, attacks had been reported in The Daily Prophet, and there was a boy nursing a secret at the docks of Liverpool. All in all, the 25th of August might have been marked in the history books as the day the world started (or ended, except for the sake of chronology, that is).

Such worries, though, did not permeate the perimeters of Stoatshead Hill that evening when the cicadas crawled and the fireflies began and two boys laid on the hill, their brooms tossed to the side and their clothes stained green from the grass they were laying on.

“Don’t worry, Bren, you’ll nail the try-outs again this year.”

“I don’t know, Spence….” Brendon’s voice held a bit of insecurity in it mixed with hesitation. “Last year, I had a stellar broom. Now, my _Cleansweep_ model’s been outstripped by the new _Nimbus 1500._ My parents can’t afford that.”

“Brendon, you’ve enough talent that you don’t need to buy your way onto the Gryffindor team!” Spencer exclaimed. “You’re the best damned Seeker that Gaskarth’s found for the team!”

Brendon hummed, but it hardly sounded confident. Unbeknownst to his mates on the Quidditch team, Brendon Urie was only ever confident when he was high in the air. On the ground, Brendon’s swagger seemed to dissipate into his trainers, and he seemed to flop at most things he tried that didn’t involve broomsticks. However, thankfully for Brendon, Spencer wasn’t friends with him for his talent in the air or ability to catch a Snitch in ten minutes; Spencer Smith was friends with Brendon Urie because of an incident that had happened in their first year (but for the sake of chronology, more on that later) and not because of his confidence on or off the Pitch.

If anyone knew about Brendon, himself, off the Pitch, he might’ve had less respect in Hogwarts.

“Besides, at least your parents let you play Quidditch; my folks are afraid of letting me leave the ground at all.”

“Personally, Spence, I think it’s best for your health. You’re rather clumsy,” chortled Brendon.

“I am not!”

“If I have to remind you what happened in our first year, one more time--”

“Alright, alright, you sod, you win!”

Brendon laughed, “When do your folks want us in bed?”

“Early.” Spencer glowered. “They both have to work tomorrow morning and don’t want us out at all hours of the night ‘chasing helicopters and being seen by Muggles’.”

“Is that what she thinks we get up to when we practice Quidditch in the orchard?” snickered Brendon.

“Apparently.” Spencer shrugged. “She’s been paranoid ever since my Uncle James crashed into a hang-glide on his broom and was thrown out of the Quidditch League for breaking the Statue of Secrecy.”

“That’s a rubbish way to go down in history.”

“Oh? And what’s better?”

“The thousands of wizards and witches who fight for dragon’s rights.”

Spencer rolled his eyes, though the corners of his lips twitched. “Brendon, you’re going to regret boycotting dragon materials when you burn your foot again from acidic potions.”

“Murdering dragons for sport and profit is wrong!”

Spencer nodded and hummed in acquiescence as the sun sank lower and lower behind Stoatshead Hill, eventually casting the entire village of Ottery St. Catchpole in quiet, dark reverie. Fireflies began to twinkle across the grass, mirroring the stars that shined above the two boys.

Lighting the lantern they’d carried with them, Spencer stood up while Brendon slung his broom over his shoulder, and they trooped down the hill towards the Smiths’ cottage.

It was the 25th of August, 1975. The sun had died in order to let the moon breathe. Two boys returned to Scarsborough to pick up the pieces of broken families. Secrets that had yet to be written out in letters were being kept. Julia Carlile was called off holiday and into the office, and a familiar head did not appear in the fireplace again. The parchment shop hid a lonely boy who had been watched at the docks through a smokescreen. And Brendon Urie was not happy.


	3. Smoke Rings, aka Two Boys by the Pond

Sometimes, he thought he could float away. Not in some hopelessly romantic way like in those wretched books teenage girls read way too often, but in a way in which he would become completely infinite. Weightless. Beautiful. Perhaps, like a red balloon.

And sometimes, he thought he could fly. Sometimes, he would hold his hands out and tilt his head to the sky, his peony lips parting a fraction in order to taste how bittersweet the mill town air really was; and sometimes, in those moments, with the smoggy wind blowing through his hair and the churn of the mills about him, he would believe he was flying.

He would believe that he was infinite.

But whenever he’d open his eyes, he was met with the cold reality that was his life.

 

(The Pond)

 

  
“You know, they invented latches on windows for a reason, mate?” Gabe Saporta finished saying, sliding through the unlatched window of his mate’s bedroom, his dirty boots hitting the carpet with a dull _plunk_ , the sound barely loud enough to permeate Alex Gaskarth’s smoke miasma he had created in the enclosed bedroom space of his parents’ cottage.

The aforementioned boy, he didn’t even bat an eye behind his closed lids (which were both behind a pair of thick glasses he wore for reading, often) at the disturbance his friend had created. Rather, he exhaled a spectacular array of smoke rings from his mouth and said quite calmly, “Wouldn’t keep you out anyways, now, would it?”

“Nah, guess not.” Gabe shrugged, ignoring his friend to mill about the bedroom, picking up a letter from a stack of unopened mail and staring down at the broomstick needle-ridden carpet, making a disappointed tut. “How’s Isobel handling it, then? Had another row?”

“I’ve jinxed the room, so it stays in here.” Alex gestured wildly with his cigarette-holding hand, causing an uproar of ashes to flutter across the room, joining the dust particles against the golden summer light streaming in through the open window. “Problem is, she won’t let Windy up here to clean. Says it’s not good for her to breathe in all this,” as he spoke, letters fell from his mouth, rings and haphazard z’s. 

Gabe eyed his friend carefully for a few more seconds, only being able to make out the thick mop of brown hair through the grayish tint of the room, the smoke turning silver and dancing into words Gabe had never even read before. He picked up another unopened letter from the pile, one from their friend, Pete Wentz, before casting his friend another worried glance. “We need to get you some fresh air. All this smoke’s gone to your head.”

Again, without blinking, Alex inhaled, “You sound like Tay. Next, you’ll be saying that I don’t need a bigger head than what I’ve got.”

“You don’t,” Gabe sighed, finally seating himself beside his reclining mate on the bed, noticing the way that Alex’s face looked paler and thinner and more sad than last time they’d seen each other (which had only been a few days since their parting in London from Scarsborough, mind). “How else is Gryffindor going to win the Cup if your broomstick won’t get off the bloody ground, you wanker?”

Alex shrugged and took another puff, more smoke rings and letters floating from his mouth. Floating towards the ceiling and disappearing silently. 

Gabe tapped his knee and bit his lip. “Come to the pond with me and I’ll tell you how leggy Bianca Duenas is?”

This seemed to do the trick because in less than a second, Alex’s eyes had snapped open and he had put out his nearly finished Everlasting, climbed out the window to escape the hazy bedroom and reveled in the last day of summer sun.

It gleamed across the grassy landscape, splaying spectacular beams across the lawn until everything danced like a kaleidoscope. Everything from the wispy clouds in the air to the fluttering dandelions, sprouting up from the moss and thick soil. A little whiles away, the perfumed fragrances of the peach blossoms caught the wind and breezed through to the open window.

On their way down the drainpipe of the house, Gabe managed to mutter, “You smoke too much,” before pocketing the pack of cigarettes.

And Alex, his laugh rang down the wooded path of the village, en route to the backyard pond, “And you’re no better, Saporta.”

The boy chuckled, silently agreeing, as he walked side-by-side with his best friend, the two of them looking more like brothers than anything. Sure, there were some slight differences: Alex was stockier and Gabe more slender, Alex’s eyes were a murky brown and Gabe’s a brilliant almond, Alex looked like bravery and Gabe looked like royalty. But none of that was what made them brothers. What made them brothers was the way both their faces lit up at the sight of their old haunt, the shallow and sparkling pond of Godric’s Hollow.

It was nothing special, really. A small pond tucked away in the open meadow behind the Gaskarth’s cottage. A place of refuge for the boys whenever the noise of reality became too much for them to handle. Or whenever they needed peace and quiet and a refreshing dip in cool water. The cicadas were chirping early, like they always did in August, and the low tide of the pond’s waters against the rocks was a peaceful enough soundtrack for Gabe to pull off his boots and sit in the damp grass surrounding the pond. Alex joined him.

Gabe pulled out the pack of cigarettes, keeping one for himself and handing one to Alex. 

“So…” Alex sighed, relaxing to the noises of the water and watching the well-practiced smoke rings issue from his mouth, “how leggy _is_ Bianca Duenas?”

Gabe shrugged. “Could be better. She kept wanting to talk, though.”

Alex snickered, “Doesn’t she know, Gabe Saporta just hits them and quits them?”

“And you haven’t had your fair share?”

Alex groaned and fell back to the soft ground, abandoning his cigarette in the patch of flowers on his left, “I wouldn’t need to if _he_ \--”

“…if he didn’t loathe every bone in your body?”

The boy nodded. “I mean, he gets along jolly with that twat, Merrick, and I’ve actually got a pair. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is, not all men are attracted to the ‘bad boy’ thing you’ve got going on like the birds are.”

Alex didn’t make a noise, instead he stared up at the clear August sky and watched the pale blues and lavenders of the impending evening swirl above them. Carried away by the wind. Obscured by the smoke Gabe’s cigarette was emitting. 

“You look like shite, mate. Something troubling you?”

Alex did, indeed, look like shite. With his gaunt face (enough so to give Pete Wentz a run for his money) and dark shadows beneath his eyes (bags that could rival Vic Fuentes’ from school) and a pale visage. And if there was one thing that did not compliment Alex Gaskarth’s looks at all, it was stress. Because when Alex was stressed, then Gabe stressed; and when Gabe was stressed, he smoked more, his hair fell out and his face looked more oily. Gabe Saporta, the pretty boy of the four friends, would not just stand for that.

“Gabe, I don’t know what to do about Tay.”

Gabe blinked. There was silence in the tiny meadow except for the gentle sloshing of water at their feet. The ebb and flow of the pond. The push and pull of their lives. “ _What_ are you talking about?”

Alex waved his hand as though grounding Gabe to reality again. “…my _girlfriend_.”

“Mate, the two of you have been dwindling out for ages. Might as well just let it happen.”

“What if it’s not that easy? I love her.”

Gabe snorted, “Since when did you care about ‘love’?”

“Since Tay came ‘round! She’s perfect!”

“Alex,” Gabe sighed and ran an aggravated hand through his dark locks, letting the cigarette fall from his hands and watching the smoke rings dissipate. Soon the pond clearing would be free of obscurity and smokescreens. Soon it would be just Alex, Gabe and the sound of the pond at their feet. The sound of two beating hearts in perfect synchronization. Of two brothers. Of a brotherhood. “You can’t have your crisps and eat them, too.”

“Blimey, Gabe, it’s not that simple!” Alex leapt up from his reclining position, eyes wild like the turbulent clouds of October. A raging storm in his pupils. “Why does everything have to be abstracts with you?

“Alex, you fancy a bloke while you’ve got a doting girlfriend, and you’re snapping at me?” Gabe rolled his eyes. “This is what happens when we leave you to brood for a few days.”

“Sod off,” Alex growled, “it’d be nice if you actually worried about stuff that wasn’t your hair for once.”

“Oh, but I do, Alex. I worry about my skin, too, see?”

Alex’s eyes held a fire in them that Gabe had never seen as the younger boy snatched the cigarettes from him, lighting one up and hastily exhaling smoke, not even bothering to craft smoke rings like he normally did. Not even taking time to busy himself with his ‘art’- as he liked to call it. Not just a ‘smelly and unhealthy’ habit like so many others before had made the mistake of calling it. No, smoking was Alex’s art. He could create anything with his smoke, temporary masterpieces, and watch them disappear in the next second. Something for his eyes only. Untainted by the unwanted stares of others.

“Alex,” Gabe sighed, barely noticing that the trickle of the pond at their feet had quieted and that even the cicadas had stopped to watch the argument, “it’s more simple than you’re making it out to be. It’s a simple question: is Jack Barakat worth it?”

That seemed to calm Alex down a bit, a smile tugging at his features. Though, it was short-lived as he groaned, “He hates me!”

Gabe shook his head. “Barakat doesn’t hate, Alex. He just abhors you.” He didn’t need to add, _to such a degree that he’d rather be best friends with Zack Merrick than even look your way._

“I just want one date.”

“Yeah… to find out how leggy he is,” Gabe snickered.

“And how big his prick is,” Alex sighed, the smoke rings returning, “And I bet his hair smells like fruit.”

“You’re starting to _sound_ like a fruit, Alex.”

Alex elbowed Gabe’s side, upsetting his alphabet of smoke he’d been busy trying to create, and the two boys fell into complete silence.

The cicadas returned to their mournful sonatas and the pond picked up speed. The sun began to set in the west, casting the two of them into the golden colors of the summer. And the only people there to witness any of it were the shadows of two boys by the pond.

 

(The Moon)

 

The moon was obscured by the clouds, that September night. They swirled around the velvety sky, and ate at the moon carnivorously. Above, the celestial body taunted Vic Fuentes as he sat on the picket fence outside the shanty bungalow he called home. Inside, the smell of apple pie issued from the window, and it nipped playfully at his nostrils and begged him to return inside. To the safety and comfort that was his house.

But Vic couldn’t help but stare at the moon, bitterly. He couldn’t help watching it and lamenting all the losses the damned orb had done for him. _To_ him. Without the moon, then maybe Vic would still have his best friend.

He’d still have the laughs they shared, and the late nights studying in the Ravenclaw common room, and the spending of holidays together. Decorating the tree with the smells of cinnamon around them and eating chocolate eggs the size of their heads. Even spending the summer holidays together, taking the Floo Network to his relations in Blackpool and spending time on the pier. Vic missed all that.

But it was useless to do anything but wish on the stars.

The moon hung in the sky, bone-colored and skeletal: an omen.

“Vic, it’s getting late!” his mother called through the open window where the late August wind breezed in. “Come in soon!” She flicked the lantern on outside the house, and Vic could remember the two of them on the white picket fence with the artificial light flickering their forms and the moon lighting them up, and Vic wished he could love the hanging crescent but it was nothing but a death wish for him.

So he went inside, wishing he still had his best friend, Kellin Quinn.

 

(The Roof)

 

Yes, there were some times when he thought he could fly. 

But other times he was completely content with laying on the sun kissed roof and staring at the sky that stretched over the tawdry town and rolled along like the chipped pavement. Times like those when he enjoyed listening to the churn of machinery along the quiet suburban houses of Cokeworth. Times when he could seek refuge and solitaire, away from the chaos he called his life, and lay on the roof to daydream. Daydream about flight. About freedom. About all the things he could not have here.

“That’s not healthy for you, you know?” a voice joined his thoughts, as did a sigh, “I can’t believe you let Sisky and Butcher get you hooked on that.”

“It’s a stress-reliever,” William Beckett said. And although he could not blow smoke rings and letters like an expert, he could sure as hell watch the smoke curdle and dissipate into the clear sky. Makeshift clouds for his pleasure. 

Sometimes, when he let his mind drift and his conscious reign free, a part of his mind would transform these wisps of smoke into birds. Little birds to fly away. Freedom reincarnated. Most of the time, though, his little birds looked like the paper swans that decorated his bedroom ceiling: makeshift hope in his imprisoned reality. But every single time, with the wind whispering across the mill town and morning doves cooing and the cicadas chirping another autumn sonata, well, William firmly believed he knew why the caged bird sang.

“Not at the rate you’re doing it. It’s an addiction.” His counterpart finished climbing onto the roof to join William, nothing but a stoic form against the inky horizon.

His shaggy hair was splayed across the roof and his honey eyes rivaled that of the lanterns down the street. His skin was tanned from the summery afternoons of laying on the roof and his lanky form looked weightless on top of that roof. But he wasn’t weightless, for he couldn’t fly. He was anchored to reality, and a part of it killed him inside.

“Addiction is happiness disguised as the devil,” William chimed in, lifting his head a fraction of an inch to watch his sister, Courtney sit beside him.

“Then what you’re doing is a sin,” Courtney said, though it’s not like she really meant it. Courtney had gone through a phase of smoking, something that the esteemed Alex Gaskarth and Gabe Saporta had glorified last year when they spent the better half of their breaks by the lake sending smoke rings to the sky.

“I like dancing with the devil,” William said loftily, “He knows how to tango.”

“Our father dances like a drunk dragon,” Courtney joked, though she noticed the way her brother’s face fell.

Their father was one of the reasons he had climbed the roof to smoke a cigarette. One of the reasons he spun around and pretended to fly. One of the reasons he wished of escape more than anything else: more than good grades and more friends and his future career.

“Court, ever wished you could fly?”

“No,” his sister said bluntly, “and if I catch you on the Astronomy Tower again, I’ll push you off of it.”

“Someone would catch me,” William said, airily, putting out her cigarette when it hit the filter.

“You believe too much in fate, Bill.” Courtney rolled her eyes.

William smiled softly at that, reveling in the quiet breeze that rustled the poplar trees and the weighted silence that had overtaken the air around the house. “Sometimes, you need something to live for.”

Courtney reached over and snatched the pack of Benson & Hedges, “He’s going to smell the smoke on your clothes eventually, you know?”

“Least this time he’ll have something to punish me over.”

Courtney finally succumbed to laying beside William on the hot roof and feeling her skin cool as the evening air began to fall upon their skin. Her skin was just as tanned as William’s, even more so, but her body smaller. Brown-blonde locks fell into curls and fell about the roof, her amber eyes pointed up to the sky that William was so obsessed with.

“We’ll be home tomorrow,” Courtney said, trying to alleviate the situation. The elephant on the roof ignored for the time being.

“And doesn’t it figure… _he_ decides to go on a ‘trip’ the same day I leave. Couldn’t have done it two months earlier,” William spat. A young boy with too much emotions.

“Sisky invited us to his place for the Christmas holidays. You won’t have to come back and have another row with him.”

“They’re not even rows anymore,” William sighed, “He tells me what to do and yells at me until I listen, and he kicks me around a bit. All that shite about hating magic. Man’s a bloody tyrant.”

Courtney shrugged, strangely silent. “At least you won’t have to come home?”

“Home is a place where you’re loved and wanted,” William whispered, “I don’t have a home. _This_ is definitely not my home.”

“Next summer we’re spending the holidays when I get a new flat in London.”

William hummed in acquiescence and let it be. Let the issues fall into place. Courtney dreamed that she would get a flat in London whenever she left Hogwarts. She dreamed that her and William would live there and return home only on Christmases and their mother’s birthday. She dreamed they’d have a happy ending with a finely decorated table at mealtimes and candles burning in the lavatory and daisies in a vase on the windowsill.

Meanwhile, William simply wished he could float away like the smoke that weaved intricate patterns in the air. Sometimes, if he closed her eyes and laid still enough on the roof, with the breeze ruffling her hair and the rich scent of smog in his nostrils, he actually believed he would float away and cease to exist. 

But, other times, when he heard Courtney speak to him and anchor him to this reality, he thought otherwise. Because he’d be met with the cold reality that was her life.

And because of that, he couldn’t wait to return to Hogwarts.

 

(The Stars)

 

The sun had long since set in Godric’s Hollow. The grass around the village pond was damp and still held the outline of two figures, boots kicked to the side and heads cradled in their arms as they stared up at the nighttime sky where thousands of lights stared back down at them. An infinite number of gods reflected in both their eyes. And in that moment, Alex and Gabe had never been closer, both with the same patch of heaven in their eyes. Mirrors to the stars.

“Which one’s Sirius?” Alex squinted through his glasses because he was always bad at astronomy.

Gabe shrugged, fiddling with a reed in his hands. “Does it matter?”

Scouring his previous knowledge of stars and constellations, Alex finally pointed out what was the brightest star in the sky, “That one’s Sirius. The brightest one in the sky.”

With a mere hum, Gabe ignored his friend, staring intently at the reed in his hand. Around the two boys, the fireflies danced to the melody of the pond; and to Gabe, they were better stars than the ones above his head. These stars were not impossible.

But Alex wasn’t giving up. His eyes trained on the celestial bodies above, he asked, “Sirius is the dog star, right, Gabe?”

“Canis Major,” Gabe said, dully. Alex believed too much in fate, Gabe thought. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had looked before taking a leap. He discarded the reed and kept his attention glued to the little stars he favored. _His_ little stars. His artificial gods. Gods who had not corrupted their names. He doubted the Greeks would have named them the same had they known what all these names would go on to do in the world.

All the Saportas in the world couldn’t do one star justice.

“Cheer up, Gabe.” Alex rolled over onto his side after Gabe had finished explaining all this to him. “A name doesn’t measure a man.”

“No, but it does well to pave that way,” he laughed, bitterly.

“You know…,” Alex said, slowly, “in some religions, Gabriel was an angel. A messenger of God.”

“I don’t believe in God,” Gabe said in return, his voice gloomy and dejected. Even in the moonlight, the aristocratic features of his face did not hold their usual glow and his bronze eyes were foggy, more like burned out ashes than magnificent wisps of smoke.

“Don’t think of it as a god. Pete told me another story, one day,” Alex tried again, idly catching a nearby firefly and letting it crawl around in the palm of his hand. Letting it tickle the lines of his hand like a familiar Snitch. “Think of it like faith, Gabe. It’s not something you have to believe in. It’s just something that’s inside of you”

Gabe shook his head and watched the firefly in his mate’s hand. “I don’t have faith in anything, Alex.”

“What’s wrong with taking a look once or twice before you jump?”

Gabe, he swiped the firefly from Alex’s hand, letting his artificial star sit on his finger. Starlight at his fingertips. The smallest bit of a smile on his face in direction to the little insect. The little miracle at the pond.

Alex waited for an answer.

Finally, Gabe, he let the firefly go, watching it join the other stars playing in the meadow around them. “Faith is lethal, Alex. It begs too much for hope.”

Above them, Sirius the Dog Star twinkled, and Gabe realized how dead stars really were.

Alex and Gabe, they were nothing but pawns under the constellations.

And on the horizon, two figures stood submerged in the shadows.

 

(The Letter)

 

_Our favorite midget, Patrick Stump,_

_First and formostly, we congratulate you on your new prefect status. Spencer is moping because we all know he wanted to be a prefect to use the Prefect‘s Bathroom, and he wants the extra alone time with his right hand (oi! He just thwacked me good-- must mean he’s more of a lefty?) I personally hope you and your right hand (or left) have happy endings in the Prefect’s Bathroom. I heard Moaning Myrtle comes to stare, sometimes. If she walks through you naked, does that count as a shag, or will your willy just promptly fall off? Do write back after you’ve experimented, please?_

_Though, Spencer would like to add that if you can’t handle Moaning Myrtle’s wandering eyes, then you must forfeit your badge to him. Personally, I think he’s being a bit daft, considering we’re from two different houses, but that’s neither here nor there as Spencer is a bit of a dafty when it comes to that kind of stuff._

_I’ve constructed this letter in hopes that you’ll give us some ‘get out of jail’ free cards (see, we do pay attention when we play those awful Muggle games of yours) when it comes to detentions, we’d be forever in your debt. (We’ve sent you a bribe of fudge, but we also know your brother is there to monitor your intake. Last time you ate the entire bar, you stayed up for three nights and traded your pants for color-changing ink and rolled around in it.)_

_We’ll meet you at the station tomorrow, bright and early. And if you’re already changed into your robes when we get there, Patrick, I will personally strip you and hang you in the train corridor for all the ickle firsties to ogle (and Moaning Myrtle). You know how they all like the silently brooding and overstressed midget types these days. I mean, I can hardly keep my hands off you, Pattycakes._

_Keep an eye out for Dallon and Ian. Our lives are endless pits of misery without the glory of their Hufflepuffness. Though I shouldn’t tease, in our first year they did find Spencer’s hair that Saporta and Gaskarth vanished away, and we are forever grateful for that because bald Spencer isn’t nearly as entertaining to have a wank to._

_See you tomorrow,_

_Brendon and Spencer_

_PS, Tell your brother, we will know if he doesn’t monitor the chocolate intake, and we will send him a Howler, and last time he discovered a screaming letter, he nearly wet his pants. Also, I do a great impression of your mother, don’t forget._

_PPS, We miss you._

Patrick smiled to himself as he finished reading the letter and put it on his nightstand, beside the new prefect badge. His brother was snoring in the bed, asleep already, but Patrick was too giddy to sleep. Too happy. And too nervous.

Briefly, out of his peripheral vision, Patrick caught a glimpse of himself. It was like he had shed off his pathetic exoskeleton of yesteryear and was reveling in a new skin that certainly fit him. Patrick Stump had changed, and for better or for worse, that remained to be seen.

 

(The Incident)

 

Sitting in his bedroom at the small desk filled with clutter and owl feathers and loose parchment, Vic stared dejectedly at a fresh piece in front of him, a quill tight in his hands that he was chewing thoughtfully, hoping the words would magically appear on paper.

Outside, the moon and stars shone, but he pulled the netted curtains to a close in hopes to hide from the monster outside. The monster that ate away at his freedom. That lived inside of him.

He had spent the better half of the night trying to figure out what he would say to Kellin that could repair their friendship. What apology could possibly go beyond words. But Vic knew it was fruitless; it always was. Whatever happened to simple gestures and movements that articulated exactly what one wanted to say? Vic could think of thousands of words to say to Kellin, but none of them seemed to work quite as well as a tight embrace. Why had humans ever learned to talk? Words seemed futile, now, they seemed to inhibit what he truly wanted to say. What lurked in the corner of his mind constantly.

He could remember, as a small child, the way he used to love the moon. He would stay up late and sneak down to the garden in front of the house and giggle at the gnomes in the light of the moon. He would digs holes in the fresh soil and pull weeds in order to help make the gnomes small little patches of paradise. He had liked the gnomes; they were funny. Their potato-shaped heads had always reminded him of the epitome of childhood, but all Vic did was shiver now when he thought of them.

He could remember a figure running towards him on all fours, big and bulky and burly against the silver of the moon waxing down. He remembered red. Lots of red. Red from the funny potato-shaped gnomes, red on his hands and then on his neck and then dribbling down his body from his face. He could remember so much red, drowning in the lethal shades of it that dripped down his body.

Vic remembered fangs. Sharp fangs in his neck, biting and chomping. He remembered even sharper claws and so much fur and crying. Vic remembered crying a lot. Not for himself so much, besides the pain he was in, but also for the poor little gnome. Dead at his feet.

It had all started out with the gnomes on a happy, little Tuesday, but on Wednesday, Vic had wanted to cry.

He squeezed his eyes shut and capped the bottle on his ink, placing the quill down and pushing the parchment away. There was no use. There was no words Vic could say to Kellin Quinn that would make him understand any of it. The gnome. The red. The moon. The pain. 

Words were deceitful at his hand.

Besides, who would want to be friends with him, Vic Fuentes: a half-breed.

A werewolf.

 

(The Reunion)

 

The two figures in Godric’s Hollow galumphed down towards the pond where Gabe and Alex sat, against the sodden earth. They entered the field of fireflies, and the small twinkling of the artificial stars lit up the figures of two boys. One was tall and stocky with jet black hair combed haphazardly into his face, and the other was tall and gangly and awkward looking with a hat pulled down over his face until all that was shone in the pitch darkness was the honey of his eyes.

“Look who decided to show up,” Gabe cajoled, “done braiding your hair, birds?”

“Shove it, Saporta,” Ryan replied dully.

“Yeah, you’re gone a whole week; and this is how you greet us.” Pete clucked his tongue. “Where have your manners gone?”

“Apparently with Bianca Duenas!” Alex cackled, “He laid around to chat.”

“Gabe shagged and stayed to chat?” Pete gasped with a laugh deep in his voice. “Don’t tell me you stayed for tea, too?”

“I did. Yer mum was putting the kettle on,” Gabe smirked. 

“Oi! The last image anyone wants here is Pete’s mum in her knickers.”

Gabe snorted, “Knickers? Please. We’re talking birthday suits, here, boys.”

The three of them cringed to the chorus if Gabe’s laughter that rang against the ripples of the pond and breezed down the hollow like the fragrance of the peach blossoms still in the crisp night air.

“How was Scarsborough?” Ryan plopped down beside Alex, who quickly snatched the older boy’s hat away and tugged it down in front of his eyes in perfect imitation.

“Excellent, if I do say so myself.” Gabe laid back down, tucking his arms under his head and staring at the canopy of stars in the swirling galaxy above their heads. “Lots of bit tits on the beach. Great heaving, humongous jubblies.”

“Are you always randy?” Alex huffed.

“Don’t mind him, boys, he’s having troubles with the missus.”

“What’s wrong with Tay?” Pete asked.

“Nothing’s wrong with Tay--”

“Is this about the bloke on the Quidditch Team?” Ryan asked.

“What?” Alex turned scarlet. “Who told you that?!”

“Pete.”

“Pete!”

“Gabe told me.”

“Gabe!”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them you fancied Barakat-- shite.”

“ _Gabe_.”

“I knew it was Barakat!”

Ryan guffawed. “I bet he’s good at beating more than just Bludgers, Alex.”

Alex tried to melt against the earth and maybe fall through the soil to some alternate reality, but nothing happened. He was still stuck by the pond in Godric’s Hollow, face burning red and hairs standing on edge.

“Relax, Al,” Pete cut in, always the one with wise words, “if you like Barakat, just leave Tay.”

“It’s not that simple. I love her--”

“If you loved her, truly, you wouldn’t fancy a bloke.”

“But I don’t know why! It just happened!” Alex whined. “He was helping me with my maneuvers, and I just-- I fucking lost myself.”

“Yeah, too bad you irritate him to his bloody bones.”

“I’ve never even done a fucking thing wrong to him before.”

“Not everyone is attracted to this marauding thing we’ve got going on,” Pete explained apologetically to his friend, and Alex groaned again.

“I say, we banish the pity pot for the night,” Gabe announced to their motley crew. “And enjoy the last night of summer.”

There was a buzz of agreement.

 

(The Dream)

 

Under the canopy of stars and the light of the moon, William fell asleep on the rooftop (as he often did on the warm, summer nights when the tension inside his house was too much for him). The stars were but voyeurs to the slumbering empires on his lashes, and the dew on the grass two floors below was the closest he’d ever get to falling asleep at sea. And the August breeze was the closest he’d ever get to flying.

Beside him, Courtney snored and rolled over.

This didn’t register for the chestnut-haired boy, who slept best when the gods of the past kingdoms were keeping watch over him and his own kingdom. His kingdom of hopes and dreams. Loves and losses. Dreams and nightmares. 

Most of these dreams, they were of flying and freedom. They were about paper swans and little boats, lost out at sea, rocking back-and-forth like some sweet lullaby of ancient’s lore. And he, the captain of this boat was more than alright with the idea of being stranded out at sea for all eternity.

_“Yo ho, yo ho. A pirate’s life for me,” he would sing quietly to no one, over the sound of the lapping waves, carrying him around the seven seas._

_The skies were the exact same as they were, in present day, in the gloom of Cokeworth, as they were in his dreams. The water had the same sound as the misty, humid breeze. The gulls could be heard in the distance, sounding much more like mourning doves than anything. Yet the same peaceful reverie settled over him._

_A loud noise startled him, though. All alone, at sea. It wasn’t a storm or a snore or even a bird. It was the sound of laughter: a boy’s laughter. He sounded young in his jubilant laughs, and his voice sounded rich. Richer than the Milky Way above their heads and more alive than anything William had ever encountered in all his sea-faring dreams._

_“What are you doing out here, all alone?” the boy asked. He sounded familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He sounded like the exact mournful tune as to why the caged bird sings._

_“I like being alone,” William said, simply._

_“That’s rubbish! No one likes being alone,” he reprimanded, “If that were the case, there wouldn’t be so many people on this planet.”_

_“Some people wander away.”_

_“Not all those who wander are lost,” the boy recited thoughtfully, with a skip in his voice and a chuckle in the back of his throat._

_William looked up at the stars. “Who are you?”_

_The heavens smirked. “A friend.”_

_“And why are you here? On my boat?” As a diligent captain in his own dreams, William would just not allow this boat to lose itself into a waterfall of nightmares._

_Again, the stars seemed almost Cheshire in the black forest of the sky. “I’m your imaginary friend.”_

_For a split second, William swore he saw a figure sitting in the moon. A raggedy, boy with a smirk on his face and a fishing rod in his hands. He blinked, and the boy was gone. The image of the raggedy, imaginary friend. Gone._

_The complex nature of his mind blazed for a few more seconds, a spectacular array of blues and blacks swirling across the sea and the sky and the horizon in between the boy and his imaginary friend. He hummed along to his own tune, and the boat swayed along. Alone at seas once again._

_William didn’t mind, though, because he was on his way to the stars._

_Because often times, he dreamt he could float away. He would believe he was infinite as he tipped his hat and rocked back-and-forth with the slumbering waves of his imagination. And whenever he’d open her eyes, he was met with the dawning sun and the sound of Courtney Beckett repeating over-and-over, “We’re late! We’re late!”_

 


	4. Platforms, Pudding, and Prefects

In 1975, Brendon Urie would find happiness.

In 1975, William Beckett would quit smoking.

In 1975, Alan Ashby would fall in love, and Alex Gaskarth would fall apart. Pete Wentz would come to a realization, Vic Fuentes would come to one too (albeit much, much different), Gerard Way would laugh, and so would Jack Barakat.

In 1975, three students would be hospitalized.

Incidentally, today was not that day.

 

(Platform 9 ¾)

 

Weaving throughout the crowds, William Beckett pushed his trolley through King’s Cross Station, where the hustle and bustle of the morning crowd flitted by his eyes in shades of beige and black work outfits, as much of the crowd was returning from various meetings abroad or on their merry way to work. William, on the other hand, was in a rush en route to Platform 9 ¾ where, finally, he would be going home. Behind him, his sister Courtney tagged along. They were garnering quite their fair share of attention, what with the mewling of William’s cat, Santi, in its basket and the rather loud hoots from Courtney’s pygmy owl, fluttering around enthusiastically and making a wretched racket. 

“Can’t you shut that thing up?” a voice grunted from behind them, and William instantly felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up as the voice wisped against his skin. “I didn’t pay all this money to drive down to London for us to be the laughing stock of the damned city.”

“Now, Eugene,” a voice cut in politely, cautious almost, “it’s hardly his fault. They’ll be on the train before anyone notices.”

“I’ve had it with this magic shite,” Eugene warned threateningly, “if it were up to me, he’d be going to Smeltings. That’s the school where I learned it all, Harriet. They’d give you a good thwack in the head if they heard any of this magic nonsense.”

“Yes, yes,” Harriet replied chipper. Agreeing with Eugene was the easiest thing to do, and she was so close to releasing her children to a better place for them. It was the easiest thing to do, in her opinion, shipping them off somewhere much safer than at the hands of Eugene Beckett. “A good thwack, that’s what most people need.”

He smiled at that.

William tried to ignore his parents behind him because his father simply didn’t understand magic like William did. He didn’t understand the anticipation coursing through his veins at the though of returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where his cozy dormitory bed awaited him and the comforts of the library and even the rigorous coursework which would give William a perfect distraction from the hell he was leaving behind.

“Alright, kids, you’ll write, won’t you?” Harriet badgered, quickly licking her finger and running it through William’s hair to flatten the mass of locks that his hair had grown into over the summer (something which Eugene had noticed and had threatened with the barber immediately).

Eugene grunted, “Yeah, that’s all we need: damned owls flying every this way and that throughout the night.”

Harriet ignored him as she administered kisses to her children’s foreheads and bade them a happy year before William broke into a full trot towards the barrier, and his parents disappeared behind him in a blur of passerby and trolleys.

“That went fairly well,” Courtney tittered behind them once the two were both through the barrier. On the other end of the two worlds, both children relaxed, now that they were where they belonged. Owls hooted as loudly as they liked, students begged their parents for new broomsticks while the parents promised to see them during the winter holidays.

William hummed noncommittally in return and maneuvered the trolley through the throng of people around them. He saw all the happiness in the air and wished that he could be part of that instead of whatever twisted routine that had been formed in his own patchwork family.

“Cheer up, Billy,” Courtney teased and rumpled his long locks, “You’ll be back home soon. We both will be.”

And soon wasn’t there nearly quick enough.

 

(Puffs)

 

The smoke twirled and rolled with the London winds, breezing in several directions as the owner of the cigarette opened his mouth in a round ‘o’ and released a cloud into the air in front of him, slowly and coolly. Women passing coughed and sent a dirty look or two his way, but Frank was apathetic to the judgment people reserved for him. He’d already been on one train that morning, from Liverpool, and had spent the better half of his morning parked on some bench outside the station, chain smoking his cigarettes, which were nearly gone.

Beside him, sat a burly blonde boy with a cigarette, too, in his mouth. He was less practiced than Frank in the art, though, and his smoke rings came out squiggly and flat, whereas Frank’s came out thick and as round as his puckered lips.

“S’nearly eleven,” Bob said, staring at the giant clock in the square to their left. “Train leaves at eleven.”

Frank liked Bob because Bob was blunt. Bob didn’t hold reservations, and he didn’t keep secrets. He was blatantly obvious, and Frank needed someone to juxtapose his own racing mind.

“Gimme a sec.” Frank inhaled and exhaled another drag of the Everlasting.

“You never used to smoke,” Bob observed, “What’s up?”

Frank shrugged. “I like the way it looks.”

“That’s stupid.”

He shrugged, again. “You do it, too.”

“Because if smoking is an alternative to you getting drunk every weekend, alone, in the dormitory, then I’m more than happy to keep you company.”

“I’ll be seventeen in October. I can drink all I damn well please.”

Bob scoffed. “When has the law ever stopped you before?”

Frank took a long, thoughtful drag, closing his eyes and feeling the London breeze tickling his cheek. “Bob, are you happy?”

“Fairly,” his counterpart replied, “Are you?”

Silence engulfed the two of them in their makeshift world as the bustle of the city continued on without the participation.

“I’m fucking miserable.”

“I know, Frankie.”

The former finished up his cigarette, witnessed a business woman glare at the fanged earring pierced on him, and stood up, stretching his sore limbs from all the train rides. His ass was sore, and his throat burned from the entire pack of cigarettes he had smoked.

Maybe, one hundred cigarettes ago, Frank would’ve cracked a joke.

As it stood, today, he didn’t.

 

(Planning)

 

“Where’s Pete?”

“Poor lad’s been forced to sit up with the other prefects,” Alex tutted mournfully as Gabe sidled into the apartment where he and Ryan were already lounging, in the middle of a game of Exploding Snap.

“Poor lad,” Gabe agreed and sat down, across from Alex. “And why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with a certain lady friend?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Alex snorted. “Tay has her friends, and I have mine. Besides, we’re meeting on the Astronomy Tower tonight.”

“Romantic.”

“It’s just for a chat.”

“Is it?”

“Well, okay, there might be some snogging involved!”

“Whatever happened, Ry?” lamented Gabe dramatically, “In my days, a good ol’ broom cupboard was always in vogue. Now these rotten kids are getting randy on towers! I say, whatever happened with the world?”

“Due to the pigeon incident, I think Alex is afraid he might get a broom in his arse next,” piped Ryan.

“Oi! Nothing went in me bum!”

“Too true.” Gabe ignored Alex. “His pecker might get all happy thinking it’s Jack come a knocking.”

Alex glared at Ryan as he tittered joyfully and lost the game from Gabe’s distractions.

“What?” Ryan stared innocently at his friend. “You should know better than sharing your secrets with Saporta. He’d sell his mother for a shag.”

“I’d sell my mother for free, lads.”

In turn, Alex ignored Gabe and said to Ryan, “He is rather a slag, isn’t he?”

“The slaggiest.”

“Says the bloke who’s about to cop a feel on the Astronomy Tower tonight!”

The three of them laughed in the compartment as the train finally whirred to life and began chugging along the tracks. They were leaving London behind and returning to Hogwarts where all of them felt more accepted than they ever did, where they were kings amongst the student body.

Alex cleaned up the game of Exploding Snap and clapped his hands to get down to business. “So how fast do you think we can set this up, tonight?”

“Depends how fast we can get to the kitchens,” supplied Ryan.

Gabe waved a hand dismissively. “Shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve got the cloak, right?”

Alex nodded. “I’ll sneak down there and meet you guys at the Great Hall. Should all be in place by the time the Sorting ends.”

The three of them snickered and sat back, watching as the cityscape slowly evolved into luscious green fields and canvasses of azure sky and thickets of woods with trees as tall as towers. 

Even without Pete present, there was something striking about the dynamics of friendships between the boys. Despite each being from a separate house, the bonds they had made in their first year had only grown stronger over the years. Their separation in school did nothing to hinder how each of them felt about each other. Gabe was a Slytherin, but he scoffed at blood purity. Alex was in Gryffindor, but he never held himself to higher or nobler standards than the others. Pete was a Ravenclaw, but he was never too smart for a good laugh. And Ryan was a Hufflepuff, but that didn’t make him dumb. Respectively, the only thing the Sorting Hat had done to them was exploit their profound traits rather than look at the whole picture.

Gabe was cunning, but he would also die for his friends. Alex was the chivalrous, but even he was top of his year. Pete could do Arithmancy problems in his head, but he had a flame of ambition in him. And Ryan was kind and loyal, but even he was known to banish cowardice to the depths where it belonged.

They all lived and breathed and laughed a great deal.

And their differences did nothing to separate them.

 

(Prefects)

 

It was rather late on the train ride, when Patrick Stump finally returned from the prefects’ compartment at the front of the train and rejoined his friends. Brendon and Spencer had met up with their fellow Hufflepuff counterparts, Dallon Weekes and Ian Crawford, who had all finally changed into their Hogwarts robes by the time Patrick arrived. That, and they had cleaned out nearly all of the sweets they’d purchased from the trolley.

“Who’s the Gryffindor prefect in our year?” Spencer demanded before Patrick could even take a seat.

“Joe Trohman.”

“Are you kidding?” wailed Spencer. “He’s a tart!”

Ian blinked. “Can boys be tarts?”

“Of course boys can be tarts.”

“But I thought girls were tarts,” said Ian.

“Girls are tarts, Ian,” Dallon explained. “But boys are treacle tarts. Makes all the difference.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense if girls were pies and not tarts?” asked Brendon, ignoring the fierce anger in Spencer’s eyes.

“Nah.” Dallon shook his head. “It makes much more sense, though, if boys weren’t treacle tarts but spotted dick instead.”

Ian, Brendon, and Patrick snickered as Spencer bit his lip and did his best to appear angry at his best friends.

“Anyways,” he continued, “yes, Patrick, Joe Trohman is a tart, and I think I was a better candidate for Gryffindor prefect than he was.”

“How do you know he’s a tart?” asked Patrick.

“Because he snogged Haley Heckenberg in a broom cupboard and shagged Marie Goble over the summer holidays!”

“That doesn’t make him a tart.”

“Aren’t he and Marie dating, though?” asked Dallon thoughtfully.

“Agrippa’s sake, he’s a tart!” exclaimed Spencer heatedly.

Brendon patted his friend consolingly. “He’s very much a tart, Spence. A monogamous, respectful tart.”

“Thank you, Brendon.”

“Anyone else we would know from the prefect meeting, Patrick?” asked Brendon.

“Brent Wilson, the Slytherin.”

“Isn’t he the bloke who got his head stuck in the toilet?”

“I reckon,” Dallon said, “I think Gaskarth and Saporta vanished him inside one of the toilets, but the spell went all wonky.”

“Poor toilet,” sighed Spencer, “imagine having something that awful inside of you.”

Through all the laughter, none of the five boys noticed a knock on the compartment door or when said door slid open to reveal a lanky boy in his school robes, a black and yellow tie done perfectly around his neck.

“Excuse me,” he piped up before stuttering out, “H-has any of you seen a cat?”

The five of them stared at him for a second before shaking their heads in unison.

“Well, th-thanks,” he murmured, “if you see him, he’s gray with black stripes. Thanks.” And then the nervous boy scampered off without another word, and they heard him knocking on the next compartment door.

It wasn’t until after dinner that anyone would know where William Beckett’s cat had run off to….

 

(Penance)

 

As the train arrived at the Hogsmeade station, the students were all able to receive their first glimpses of Hogwarts. There was awe from the first-years who had never seen the castle at all, and there was ecstasy from the students who were all grateful to be back at the magnificent school. One student, however, was not cracking smiles or cracking jokes with his friends. Instead, he was rather miserable.

Vic Fuentes stepped off the train with his brother, Mike, in tow and maneuvered through the gaggles of students in order to secure one of the carriages. The ride up to the school from the station was filled with tension as Mike kept biting his lip and stealing glances at his brother.

“Cheer up, Vic.”

“How can I?” he retorted glumly. “Kellin’s never going to speak to me again.”

“Who needs him? If he’s going to choose some slag over you, then let him.”

A Hufflepuff fifth-year, across from the two brothers, nearly squealed. “Kellin Quinn has a girlfriend? Who?!”

Mike stared at her in disbelief. “Some girl named Katelynne.”

“Oh, she’s a _lucky_ tart,” the girl sighed dreamily.

Mike continued to stare at her for another moment before shaking his head and turning back to his brother. “You still have other mates. You have Jaime and Tony.”

“I know.” But Vic didn’t really know that. Kellin Quinn had been the only thing in his life he had ever been sure of. Kellin was the only one who knew the secret of where he went every full moon; even Jaime and Tony had no clue to the raging monster inside of Vic.

Every second Vic lived in fear that Kellin would leak his secret to the entire school, all because Vic had told Kellin that his girlfriend was a slag and was cheating on him.  
Kellin had had the nerve to call Vic jealous, to say that he was jealous that Kellin had found love and Vic never would know love, to call Vic a half-breed.

“I think I’m going to apologize to him,” said Vic defiantly.

“For what?! You didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I need to do this, Mike.”

“Bloody hell, Vic! Saying sorry doesn’t mean anything’s changed.”

Vic ignored his brother’s words of wisdom and sank back into his seat. Mike didn’t know anything about the dynamics between Vic and Kellin. They used to be, what Vic had considered, soul mates. But the more and more he thought about it, when that monster inside his head started to take over, Vic realized he was nothing but destruction on Kellin’s part. He was the poisoned apple to Kellin’s bite, and the growing flame to Kellin’s bright light. Vic’s deteriorating mental state was contagious, and Kellin didn’t deserve that danger.

But it didn’t mean that Vic couldn’t be selfish and engulf Kellin in that lifestyle anyways. Vic needed Kellin.

The carriage finally reached the steps of Hogwarts, the Hufflepuff girl squealed over a glimpse of Kellin Quinn in the carriage in front of them, and Vic leapt out of the carriage and took off towards the steps Kellin was climbing by himself.

“Kellin!” he called out to his old friend. “Oi, Kellin, wait up!”

But Kellin didn’t even look behind him, and Vic swore he could hear his heart shatter. Because Kellin didn’t hate him; Kellin was done with him.

 

(Pudding)

 

“How were your holidays, Trav?”

“Small talk looks horrible on you, Saporta.”

“Really? I always thought it was this tie,” Gabe sighed as he shoveled the last of his dinner into his mouth at the Slytherin table.

He was sitting next to his Slytherin mate, Travie McCoy: a tall, black wizard with his tie loosened haphazardly and a sly smirk on his face. “I’m guessing you and your fucking mates finagled something completely irrational to torture the school with?”

“Aw, Travie, you do care!” cooed Gabe.

“Stop being a smart arse, you prick. Am I going to be affected by this stunt and have to hex you into next week?”

“Probably.”

Travie frowned, but Gabe didn’t notice as he shoveled the last of his potatoes into his mouth. He was so used to Travie’s empty threats and macho attitude that none of his actions seemed to scare Gabe into submission.

“You’ll get kicked out one day.”

“And when that day comes, I’ll take you down with me,” replied Gabe cattily.

Rolling his eyes, Travie cleared his plate. “There’s something with you, mate. You wear the Slytherin colors, but you don’t wear the Slytherin pride.”

“There’s no pride in being in a house where someone’s blood measures their worth.”

“You don’t believe in the movement, then?”

“It’s just a bunch of radical supremacists running around scaring Muggleborns. They’ve got no real movement behind them.”

“You don’t read the papers much, do you?”

Snickering, Gabe pushed his plate away and watched as dessert began to appear all along the table. “When Rita Skeeter writes something with more substance than ways goblins can clear up their skin, then I’ll read it.”

“Well, according to the papers, war’s on the horizon. If I were you, Gabe, I’d pick a side, and I’d do it fast.”

Gabe was about to reply to that when there was a pop like a firecracker from the middle of the four house tables, a scared mewling of a cat, and all Gabe could see through the onslaught of exploding puddings he and his friends had set up was a gray tabby cat running down the tables and setting the exploding puddings off.

He saw his friends had ducked under the table, and he did the same, leaving Travie alone to face a face full of chocolate pudding that would take more than a little magic to wash out of his robes.

Amidst the chaos was a lone William Beckett chasing after the tabby as Professor Dumbledore tried to regain control of the Great Hall.

 

(Professors)

 

“-- _the most immature magic I’ve ever seen in my life!_ ”

“What were you thinking?”

_“--do you have any idea what example you set for the new students? Distasteful!_ ”

“Now, boys, if you confess now, we can amend your punishments….”

“-- _no one will be leaving my office until this is figured out. Which of you boys did it?!_ ”

Gabe, Alex, Pete, Ryan, and William were standing in the middle of Professor McGonagall’s office with the respective Heads of Houses surrounding them. Slughorn looked mildly tipsy from mead he had been drinking at the staff table as he kept hiccupping every time he tried to reason with the five boys who had been caught.

What happened in the Great Hall didn’t process most students until they were covered head to toe in pudding, but the four boys who had planned the prank knew every minute detail of what had gone down. They had vanished miniature, harmless firecrackers inside the school’s puddings which would be set off when movement was detected (when someone reached to serve themselves a spoonful). What they didn’t count on was William Beckett’s cat to run, frightened and lost, across the Hufflepuff table setting each exploding pudding off simultaneously.

Now, the four were standing in the middle of Professor McGonagall’s office with William who was covered in pudding and clutching his equally dirty cat.

“Oh, my apologies, Mr. Beckett. Nearly forgot,” Slughorn muttered and waved his wand. In an instant, William and his cat were clean.

“Professor, it wasn’t us!” Gabe exclaimed.

“You have gone too far, you four. You have crossed the line! The Welcoming Feast? Honestly!”

“We’ve never crossed the line, Professor,” Alex said.

“We’ve tiptoed over it,” Gabe chimed in.

“And sometimes danced,” added Ryan.

“Frolicking, too!” Pete added.

“Enough of this nonsense!” Professor McGonagall exclaimed. “Are either of you going to confess, or am I going to have to take points from each of your houses?” She eyed Alex particularly as though blaming him if Gryffindor lost the House Cup this year.

“Professor, that’s not fair--”

“I did it.”

The room fell into a collective silence as the four teachers and the four boys looked to their right in awe. There was William Beckett, a Hufflepuff they’d never spoken to a day in their life, clutching his cat and claiming that he had pulled the mother of all pranks off at the Welcoming Feast.

William Beckett was outright lying to four teachers!

“Mr. Beckett,” Professor Sprout, his Head of House, put in gently, “you do not have to cover for anyone. You are not in trouble; we only called you up here to collect your cat.”

“I k-know,” he stuttered, “but I can’t let them take the blame for this. I-it was me.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Believe me, Professor, I wouldn’t take the blame for them. I’ve never spoken to any of them a day in my life.”

Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Then why were you covered in the pudding and not them?”

William shrugged. “Luck, I suppose.”

“Very well, Mr. Beckett,” Professor Sprout said before turning to the four real culprits. “You four may return to your dormitories.” When they had filed out of the office, she returned to William. “Although this is your first offense, I am still required to give you a detention this Saturday at eight. And fifty points will be taken from Hufflepuff.”

“Sorry, Professor,” mumbled William.

“What compelled you to do such a thing?”

He shrugged. “Was sick of being a wallflower, I guess.”

She gave him a pitying glance before bidding him goodnight and sending him back to his dormitory with their password. William slumped out of the office, clutching Santi tightly, and wondering what he was getting himself into.

 

(Picture)

 

The 7th year Slytherin dormitory was silent that night-- unusually so. The five boys had gotten more than enough excitement at dinner with the exploding puddings and after magicking themselves clean and showering to get what they missed off, four of them had fallen asleep peacefully. Gerard Way, however, was plagued by insomnia and had crawled out of his four-poster after midnight to sit at the desk and open an empty journal up.

Gerard never actually kept a journal, for he was horrible at keeping up with recording in it. He did, however, find it very cheap at a Muggle secondhand shop (it was a handsome black book bound in leather) and decided it would be best if he moved his drawings into this instead of the margins of his schoolbooks (that way, Mikey could have his books second-hand as he finished Hogwarts).

Now, alone and with the aid of wand light, Gerard found it more than appropriate to open the little black book up and begin penning drawings in it that he’d been imagining in his head since the journey on the Hogwarts Express.

After all, Gerard’s mind worked with images much better than it ever did with words. He articulated everything he felt so much better when his quill was scribbling lines and figures rather than letters.

Gerard’s face was nearly pressed to the paper as he drew, his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration.

Once or twice he thought he heard the stirring of one of the other boys in his sleep and had to dim his wand just to be safe. He didn’t think he could bear it if word got out that the freak of Slytherin house drew in the middle of the night. They’d tease him and ridicule him worse than ever. Gerard was nothing more than a blood traitor to them.

There was only one boy in the dormitory who had yet to make fun of Gerard and his blood traitor relatives. His name was Frank Iero.

He didn’t say much to anyone, though, besides Bob Bryar. In fact, the only time Gerard ever really heard Frank talk was when he was on the Quidditch Pitch and Gerard was sitting in the stands watching him (as captain) shout orders to the team.

There was something about him that no one could figure out. Girls adored him, blokes looked up to him on the Pitch, but he showed no interest in anything. He only talked to Bob Bryar. From what Gerard knew (which was very little in social conventions), he’d never had a steady girlfriend, he hardly went to Hogsmeade, and he spent most of his time hidden in the confines of the library (although rumor also had it that Frank Iero was a lost cause for almost every subject, except Divination). Rumors also circulated that Frank only hung out with Bob in the summer, no one knew where he lived, and he always went home on the holidays although no one knew a thing about his family, either. Frank Iero was an enigma.

But it was not like Gerard sat around at midnight thinking about Frank Iero, usually. It had only just struck Gerard how he was the only one who had never said a word to him, whereas the other boys taunted him mercilessly.

Thoughts of his fellow student continued to race through his mind as his quill scratched the parchment of the notebook endlessly, even as Gerard’s eyelids began to droop and his movements became more and more lethargic.

As he fell asleep, his hand smudged the drawing of a figure he had seen over the summer. It was a boy who had been working at the docks. Gerard only ever saw his silhouette from a distance, but he had seen a very prominent fang-shaped earring on his ear. Most of the time, the smoke from the boy’s fag obscured his facial features, but Gerard knew it was just another Muggle teenage boy looking for some pocket money. 

It had been no one special.

 

(Problem)

 

Floors above where Gerard Way was falling asleep at his desk and inside one of the towers, Austin Carlile, himself, was trying to fall asleep after the rowdiness of the Welcoming Feast, which had carried over into the Common Room that night as everyone could not stop talking about it and eventually Head Boy Kellin Quinn, moody and morose, had ordered everyone to sleep. So with a stomach full and legs feeling like lead from the events of the day, Austin dragged himself to sleep. It wasn’t hard to revel in the silence of the night in the dormitory, though. He was the only one who snored, and there was new tension between Kellin Quinn and Vic Fuentes that they no longer stayed up whispering into the dawn together.

Just about the time that Austin felt sleep hitting him, however, he was awoken harshly by the thudding sound of a body hitting his mattress and a face pressed close up to his.

His eyes snapped open. “Alan?!”

“Shush, yes, Aus. It’s me,” the familiar voice of his ginger friend whispered into his ear.

“What are you doing in my bed?”

“I haven’t come for a snog, you daft git.”

“That’s usually the only reason you go to other beds, Alan.”

“Shut your gob,” Alan mumbled, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Because you haven’t had a snog yet?”

Alan elbowed Austin and hissed, “This has nothing to do with snogging, Austin. I just can’t sleep.”

“So you thought my bed would help you?”

“No, I thought _you_ would help me.”

Even in the pitch black, Austin could feel his face heating up to a burning red. “W-what do you want me to do?”

“Just shut up,” Alan yawned. 

Austin nodded and shifted a little more to allow Alan pillow space. The seconds dragged into minutes and the minutes into hours before Austin could hear the deep breathing of Alan that said he was sleeping.

This wasn’t anything new for the two of them, sleeping together. Austin and Alan would sleep together all the time in his room during the summer holidays because neither Austin or Alan wanted to sleep on the floor. It was nothing intimate; they were mates and nothing more. Besides, Alan had been talking nonstop about Maddie from his date at Diagon Alley a few days ago. Nothing had changed.

The only problem (besides Alan’s notorious insomnia) was that Austin really wished something had changed between them.

He sighed to himself and rolled over, facing away from Alan, and tried to ignore the feeling of the other’s breath on the back of his neck.

 

(Prefects, Again)

 

Alex Gaskarth was handsome. He had light brown hair that always stuck up and looked windswept as though he’d been on a broomstick, he had comforting eyes, a straight nose, and was considerably tall for his age. He had sure-footed steps, was confident in everything he said and seemed to march around the castle with the gait of self-possession in each of his footsteps.

But Alex Gaskarth also had insecurities that he hid behind the lazy cattiness that spewed from his mouth when he sat in the back of classrooms or strutted around the courtyard with his mates at his side. It just so happened, however, that Taylor Jardine had never seen a side to Alexander William Gaskarth that didn’t ooze with flair and dramatics.

To Tay, Alex was simply stunning. He had good teeth and his breath tasted like coffee most days (except when he had been smoking), he had smooth skin and a lovely laugh. That, and Tay had always noticed that Alex was a very good kisser.

“You sure you haven’t been practicing on another bird?” Tay giggled against Alex’s lips as they sat on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, lip locked. “I don’t remember you kissing this well last term.”

“That’s offensive, Tay,” muttered Alex in return, “You know I’ve been in Scarsborough for most of the holidays with Gabe.”

Tay giggled again, “Well, then, Gabe must have a very hands-on approach to telling you about his conquests, eh?”

Alex laughed and pressed his lips harder against hers to drown out the voice inside his head that was telling him it wasn’t right to be leading Tay on like this when he fancied a bloke who didn’t give a damn about him and hadn’t since they were young.

He could remember the exact day that he knew Jack Barakat was the one for him. Unfortunately, it was also the day that Jack had begun to loathe him (but that was not of importance at the moment). What was of importance was the energy that Tay had in returning all his kisses, matching each of his movements and tugging gently at his hairs.

It was routine. It was almost boring.

Tay must’ve noticed Alex’s wandering mind, for she pulled away. “Something wrong?”

He looked at her: the concern and honesty in her eyes that were much to good for him and too good for words.

“I s’pose I’ve just been thinking too much,” he muttered.

“Sorry.”

Alex was simply stunned. He was here, thinking of someone else while snogging her and she was fucking apologizing to him.

“Why don’t we head back and sleep? It’s much too late even for a prefect to be patrolling the corridors,” said Tay, staring almost guiltily down at her badge as though apologizing to it for abusing her powers to snog her boyfriend.

He smiled and helped her up. It wasn’t until he leaned in for a last peck, with the moonlight shining in her wind-swept hair and her lips still red and swollen from his nibbling, that either of them saw it.

 


	5. Dangerous Habits

 

The Ministry of Magic was called, of course. They were usually called for incidents like this, but this was the first time they had been called to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Alex and Tay had been called to Professor Dumbledore’s office before the Head of the Auror Office, Mr. Bellamy, was called in. They gave their testimony to the headmaster (Professor Dumbledore’s eyes even twinkled humorously when they stuttered out that Tay had caught Alex sleepwalking on the Astronomy Tower). Finally, the headmaster sent them to bed before they could give their testimony to Mr. Bellamy.

However, Alex had been awoken from a troubled night sleep in order to head to a spare classroom where he would be meeting Mr. Bellamy and explaining to him what he had seen atop the Astronomy Tower the night of 1 September, 1975.

“You were… sleepwalking that night, then?” he asked slowly, staring at Dumbledore’s written report.

Alex leaned back in the chair. “Does it really matter what I was doing on the tower that night?”

“Yes, Mr. Gaskarth, it does.” Mr. Bellamy had hard eyes that seemed to bore into Alex’s conscience.

Finally, he huffed. “I was snogging my girlfriend.”

He chuckled amusedly, “I see Hogwarts has hardly changed since I was here.”

Alex grinned himself. “You had your own late time rendezvous, I take?”

Bellamy made a grunting noise in the back of his throat as he cleared it and shuffled papers around. “What time would you say this was around?”

“Almost midnight?”

“And it definitely wasn’t there when you arrived on the tower?”

“No.”

“Meaning someone would’ve had to have cast the curse while you were up there?”

“There was no one up there besides us!” exclaimed Alex. He looked rather infuriated at the long string of interrogation aimed at him. He was tired and exhausted and bedraggled, and he still had classes that morning. Plus, he was missing breakfast. His stomach churned pathetically.

Bellamy muttered something under his breath and jotted something on the scroll he was holding.

“What was that, though?” asked Alex, “That thing we saw?”

“It is known as the Dark Mark. It is the sign of Voldemort and the Death Eater movement. It is a mark they have begun shooting over the buildings of Muggleborns they murder.”

Alex remembered the ghastly green of the skull and serpent that threaded itself into the nighttime sky.

“B-but no one was murdered?”

“It would appear not,” he muttered, “Seems the mark was nothing more than a gag by a student. You’re familiar with the student body,” he said, “do you know anyone with radical connections who could’ve learned such a powerful spell?”

Alex didn’t know the inhabitants of Slytherin house very well, but he knew enough from Gabe to know that the whole lot of them were unpleasant and blood purists. He admitted this to Bellamy.

“It won’t do good to profile and stereotype an entire school house,” sighed Bellamy. “You best be off to class, then, Mr. Gaskarth.”

Alex sat up and turned to open the door to the classroom. He was nearly out of the interrogation room when Bellamy’s voice followed him out the door: “And back in my day, Mr. Gaskarth, a good broom cupboard was always in vogue. Remember that, won’t you?”

 

(William Eugene Beckett)

 

He was running late.

Shuffling out of the dormitory with his tie carelessly knotted and his shirt untucked and mismatching socks, William gripped his schoolbag tight to his body and rushed out of the Hufflepuff common room entrance where the cool air of the dungeons hit him like an icy shower. He tried to ignore the thought that he had forgotten his cloak in his trunk and rushed along the corridors, heart pumping and stomach growling, praying that he wouldn’t miss any classes on his rush to breakfast that morning.

“Oi! There you are!” a familiar voice shouted at him from down the corridor.

William slowed his pace to a trot before the owner of the voice, running and panting, finally caught up to him.

He was even more surprised to see the tall, graceful figure of Gabriel Saporta striding along beside him as though it were the most normal thing in the world. He was definitely good-looking, William observed, a rumor from the student body’s girls that he had never actually noticed for himself. He had a long, straight nose with caramel colored skin and rather large, yet straight, teeth. His dark hair was styled to perfection, and his profound brows and high cheekbones only seemed to highlight the mocha color of his almond-shaped eyes.

“Y-yes?” stammered William.

“What’s with you, kid?” he demanded.

William’s voice caught in his throat at Gabe’s insolence, and he squeaked, “Excuse me?”

“Last night,” Gabe confirmed, “what was that all about?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said in frustration, “why the fuck did you take the blame for something you didn’t do?”

William shrugged.

“That’s not an answer!”

“I guess, I realized none of you were going to fess up.”

“But it was of none of your concern!” he exclaimed, mouth almost hanging open in complete shock. 

“I was in the room with you, wasn’t I? Some of it was my concern.”

Gabe fell silent at that as they meandered through the finally corridors of the dungeons where the rickety staircase ahead was littered with similar Slytherin and Hufflepuff students commuting to breakfast.

“What do you want then?” he asked quietly.

William’s brows knitted together. “Huh?”

“You obviously want something in return for taking the blame, eh? Name your price, lad.”

“I-I don’t want anything from you!”

It was Gabe’s turn to raise one of his dark, sculpted brows. “Nothing? Then why the fuck did you do it?”

“I don’t know why I did it; I just did. Not everything in life needs to make sense.”

Gabe slowed his pace as though it were hard to process this information. “So you’re serving a detention Saturday night, and you don’t want anything from us?”

“Correct.”

“Fine.” Gabe shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and stopped his pace. “See you around then…?”

“It’s William,” the boy said.

Gabe nodded and stalked away, leaving William free to enter the Great Hall by himself where he quickly spotted his sister and two best friends eating breakfast together at the Hufflepuff table. He hurried over to them.

“William Eugene Beckett!” his sister exclaimed, “What the bleeding hell is it I’m hearing about you in detention?!”

“It’s nothing, Court,” Bill mumbled, face turning red at the commotion that Courtney was causing.

“You were the one who exploded all those puddings at dinner?!”

“No,” he muttered, “Court, drop it. It wasn’t me. I just took the blame.”

“William, you’ve never had a detention in your life! Don’t you think this will affect your future at all? One detention can carry a lot of weight when you’re searching for a job.”

“Oh, Courtney, let Bill be rebellious!” William’s best friend, Adam Siska, chortled through a mouthful of marmalade and toast. “He’s not going to end up in Azkaban because one Saturday in his fifth year had him scrawling out lines for an hour.”

“Who in Merlin’s trousers were you taking the blame for?!”

“Gabe Saporta,” William said so quietly into his pumpkin juice that his friends almost didn’t hear him.

“Him?!” Courtney squawked. “He’s always in trouble! Why would you sell yourself short for a bloke who thought derobing the Hogwarts portraits a few years back was entertaining?!”

Sisky shuddered. “I’ve never wanted to erase the image of Magdalena the Magnificent’s left tit from my mind.”

William’s other friend, Andy Mrotek (or as everyone called him, ‘The Butcher’, due to his hearty maneuvers as Beater for the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team) laughed, “Never in my entire life did I suspect I’d be hearing that from you, Sisky.”

“Shut it,” warned Sisky, pointing a forkful of egg at Butcher threateningly. “I saw your staring at her twat, you todger.”

Butcher shrugged nonchalantly. “I like my birds a bit antiquated. What can I say?”

William raised an amused brow. “Is that why you spent most of last year lurking in the library? Hoping to catch a glimpse of Madam Pince’s bum?”

Courtney wrinkled her face in distaste. “I’m trying to stomach food, here!”

Butcher rolled his eyes. “For your information, Bill, I spent most of my library hours in a good, hearty snog last year.”

“With who?” snorted Sisky. “Your right hand?”

With one final look of revulsion, Courtney abandoned her meal, grabbed her timetable off the table and muttered something about going to classes early. No sooner had she gone then Sisky finally remembered that he had collected Bill’s for him off Professor Sprout and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” sighed William, staring at the long morning he had in front of him.

Even then, something was nagging the back of his mind and saying that nothing this day had in store for him could be any more interesting than that strange chat with Hogwarts’ bachelor of the year, Gabriel Saporta.

 

(The Absence of Zack Merrick)

 

Alex was right about a few things that morning. He was, indeed, late for breakfast and found himself even later for his first class of the day, Potions. He was also right that the student body had yet to figure out what had happened on the Astronomy Tower last night as the incident would probably not be publicly reported until _The Evening Prophet_. Alex wrinkled his nose in distaste as he thought of the Ministry of Magic and their politics and their public interest stories where they made a mockery of the world for ratings to keep the Minister of Magic in office instead of doing his duty.

After all, Alex Gaskarth knew a fair bit about the goings on in the Ministry of Magic due to his father who worked there as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Unfortunately, every time Alex thought about that occupation and the Aurors (like Bellamy) who worked beneath his father, it made him sick to his stomach. But seeing as he was already late for class and running down into the dungeons frantically, he tried to push those thoughts from his mind.

When Alex entered the frigid room in the dungeons, most of the class was already at work weighing ingredients in their scales or copying notes from Slughorn’s blackboard on the Calming Draught.

Unfortunately for Alex, being late meant that Gabe had taken up being partners with Travie, his Slytherin mate, and Alex was forced to take the only empty seat left (on the opposite side of the room).

“Excellent, Mr. Gaskarth, you’ve arrived!” Slughorn exclaimed, “Worry not, I was warned of your tardiness in advance. Would you mind being Mr. Barakat’s partner, eh? It seems his partner took a bit more than pudding at the feast last night and has been in the Hospital Wing ever since.” Slughorn tssked sadly to himself.

Feeling the hot, burning stare of Jack on him as he moved across the room, Alex tried to quell his racing nerves and pray to a higher power that no one else would be able to hear the rampant beating of his heart- especially Tay, who was working with one of her mates at a desk in the front of the room.

“H-hey,” muttered Alex to Jack as he sat beside him, wishing that he wouldn’t look as nervous as he felt.

“I finished my notes,” he muttered darkly, “You can copy them. I’ll start weighing the ingredients.” Jack already had his cauldron and his scales set out before them.

Alex nodded and grabbed the scroll of parchment Jack had been scribbling on and set to work copying them down. Even Jack Barakat’s handwriting was flawless. Each letter was sculpted in thick black ink and ran down the length of the page in tight-knit words that were straight for the entirety of the scroll.

But even his handwriting couldn’t truly do him justice, Alex supposed, not when the real thing was sitting beside him. Jack was too good for words. He had a strange and sedated look on his face, and a dopey-sounding laugh when he was joking with his friends. His hair was constantly rumbled, and it matched the barely-there patch of stubble across his cheeks that smelled strongly of aftershave as though Jack had merely rolled out of bed to achieve perfection.

Jack’s movements were profound and languid as he sliced the horned slug and measured the powdered snake fangs before dumping them in the cauldron and stirring accordingly. 

Unfortunately for Alex, Jack didn’t seem to be taking as much notice to him as Alex was to Jack. His brows were furrowed in undivided concentration, and his eyes looked beady and black in the flickering flames of the dungeon’s torchlight. 

Alex sighed because he had ruined anything that they could have had together.

He could remember the day that Alex had first fancied him, and it was the same day that Jack had learned to hate Alex.

And he could remember every moment in the preceding years of why this particular attraction had never left him.

“Are you nearly done?” Jack asked in a low, grunting voice that made Alex jump and smudge the last word on the page.

Trembling, he handed the scroll back to Jack and set to work helping slice up their roots for the potion.

“Look, Jack--” Alex stammered, which was rather new to him for Alex was always confident and cool and collected. Something about Jack, though, made Alex feel… guilty for things he’d done in the past. Something about Jack made Alex want to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes.

“Don’t,” he commanded sharply, “I don’t care for apologies, Gaskarth. You and I are not mates, let alone on anything but a surname basis. We’re teammates on the Quidditch team, but that is it. Don’t kid yourself into thinking otherwise.”

And just like that, the remaining half hour of the class was marked by an indubitable silence that felt foreign and harrowing as though, all along, Alex had been homesick for something he had never known.

 

(Professor Walker)

 

It had only taken until ten o’clock in the morning for word to spread around the entirety of the school about what had happened last night on the Astronomy Tower- or, at least, a general idea. All anyone knew is that Alex Gaskarth had witnessed a Dark Mark being launched over Hogwarts and that the Ministry had called in one of their best Aurors to work the case. With fear and anxiety and letters flooding in from parents, many of the details were lost in the paranoia. No one seemed to believe that it was simply a joke from a troubled youth.

Thus was what Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith started to discuss on their way to their first Muggle Studies class of the new year. 

“I remember when my parents would tell me stories about the years Grindelwald was in power,” said Spencer, “They said our world would never be like that again. It was awful.”

“I was under the impression that Hogwarts would always be safe,” Brendon replied.

“Oh, it is!” Spencer exclaimed, “Dumbledore’s the one who defeated Grindelwald and he’ll defeat this Voldemort character, as well. I heard Voldemort went to school, here. He was in Slytherin.”

“No surprise there.”

“I think it was a prank,” Spencer went on, “Some sick Slytherin’s idea of a larf all because they heard mummy and daddy talking down on the Muggleborns.”

“I s’pose,” said Brendon thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine many people actually buying into that supremacist shite.”

With that in mind, the two boys entered the Muggle Studies classroom on the fourth floor where the class was nearly full except for two empty seats towards the back, which Brendon and Spencer took respectively. It was rather strange that the class had filled up the way it had; normally (in their two years of taking the class) there was only a handful of students in the class. Now, the majority of the desks had been taken up by girls in their year who were all sitting up straight or applying last-minute lipstick.

“What’s going on?” Spencer hissed to Brendon, who shrugged.

He didn’t care; none of these girls would give him the time of day if he asked, anyways. Brendon was always a loner, and he was always invisible- even at his own home.

“Good morning, class,” an unfamiliar voice, that sounded nothing like the wizened Professor Bartley, addressed the room.

Brendon looked up and watched a tall, young wizard dressed in shabby robes enter. He had five o’clock shadow and stubble across his face, dark bags under his eyes, but a chipper and dimpled smile as he stared around at the smiling (mostly feminine) faces. The hem of his robes were patched and frayed, and his hat was lopsided on his head, but his eyes were bright and crinkled with jubilance.

“I will be your new Muggle Studies professor,” he explained, “My name, as the staff would dictate, is Professor Walker. However, I’m not much older than you, so you can call me Jon s’long as you don’t get me in trouble with the headmistress.”

A relieved chuckle washed over the class.

“Today we will be learning about the magic of electricity,” Jon announced as he held up a jar of odd knick-knacks. “These are called plugs.”

Brendon swiveled in his seat to receive some input from Spencer next to him, but the other boy’s mouth was agape as he stared at Professor Walker, blue eyes twinkling.

 

(His Name was Martin)

 

Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs did not have class with the Gryffindors of Slytherins at all that Wednesday afternoon, thus Pete Wentz and Ryan Ross were left to their own devices as they struggled through the first day of Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Fortunately, Professor McGongall had yet to assign them homework (although she’d spent most of the class lecturing them while they recorded notes). Unfortunately for both of them, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Professor Blackwood, had been ghastly and nefarious in scheduling them homework: a fourteen inch essay on Boggarts.

With nowhere to go and nothing to do on their break after lunch, the two friends trooped upstairs to the library, which was mostly empty due to the first day of term classes.

“Bully on Professor Blackwood,” grumbled Ryan moodily as they sat at their preferred table of study near the window.

Pete nodded. There were dark circles under his eyes from nightmares that plagued him again, and the lesson on Boggarts had only dampened his mood. “Can’t wait to see why Blackwood ends up leaving the post.” It was, after all, a well-known fact that no Defense Against the Dark Arts professor lasted more than a year.

“And Boggarts?!” Ryan exclaimed, “What’re we? Third years?”

Pete snorted in agreement. “Who the bleeding fuck cares about the psychological trauma after seeing a Boggart.”

Ryan nodded. “I’d like that codger to name one person who’s suffered a meltdown over a Boggart. Honestly.”

But Ryan’s voice was slowly drifting away from Pete as he immersed himself in the book, reading about mental breakdowns from witness-accounts on those who had suffered after seeing a Boggart:

_Depending on the nature of the individual’s Boggart, one may fall victim to psychological traumas due to the image of the thing they fear most. Albeit a rare occurrence, Boggarts can prod repressed memories into the open for their victims and even skewer the truth with their own daunting images of the flashback (if the Boggart does, indeed, take the form of the repressed memory)._

It didn’t take much for Pete’s mind to wander from the text on the pages to his own mind, where he wasn’t in the Hogwarts library with Ryan.

Instead, Pete was transported into his memory to a time when he was eight-years-old. 

Pete Wentz had grown up in a small, stable family (as an only child) just outside a Muggle village in Bristol. Unfortunately for Pete, having a Muggle mother did not stop his magical powers from coming in early-on as a child, and Pete often made unbelievable things happen in front of the other children when he and his mother would venture into the village for shopping or simply to play on the playground.

On those outings, Pete tried very hard to make friends; but there was something about him the other children thought odd. They made fun of him and threw the mulch from the playground at him, and eventually Pete’s mother stopped taking him down to the playground where the other kids could spit on him. So Pete frequented his time inside the woods on the outskirts of their property.

He was only eight-years-old when he met him. His name was Martin- or at least that’s what he called himself. He was a giggly, freckled seven-year-old, one year his junior, who didn’t spit on him or think him weird. Instead, he played pretend with him and climbed trees and waved sticks around like fake swords and sang Beatles songs with under their breaths. 

His name was Martin, and he was lovely.

And it didn’t even matter that Pete attended Hogwarts when he turned eleven or that he spent several months from home because he said he attended a boarding school as well, so he never questioned him when Pete said he would be going away for school.

That’s how their life happened. They played in the summer, and the letters that he sent to Pete’s house would be owled from his mother, to Hogwarts, who would then send his letters to Martin’s mother through Muggle post who would forward them on to Martin. Life went on.

However, Pete’s secret of being a wizard burned inside him those months they spent apart; and in the summer before his fifth year, Pete took the initiative and told Martin what he was.

At first, he had been angry at him for lying about something so ridiculous. Then he had been awed when Pete showed him his wand and his acceptance letter to Hogwarts. And then he had gone home, crying, and the next day he didn’t come to the woods. His mother explained that he was sick whenever Pete would visit his home, and he didn’t answer any of his phone calls or letters. He wanted nothing to do with him.

It happened when he returned to Hogwarts for his fifth year.

It was an ordinary June day (the fifth of the month, to be exact) when he received the letter from his mother.

The memory of the black ink, so bold against the starkness of the parchment, burned in his mind:

_Pete,_   
_I’m so sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, dear. I’ve only just received word from Martin’s mother. She didn’t elaborate much, but she said there’s been an incident involving Martin. He’s had an accident and is in the hospital. Apparently, there is no way to visit him, but his mother wanted you to know. She said you meant a lot to Martin._   
_I’m so sorry, Pete._   
_Maybe when you return home for the summer holidays, there will be more word on his condition._   
_Love,_   
_Mom_

Pete still wasn’t too sure what had happened to Martin; but ever since that day, Pete’s Boggart had been Martin’s corpse, mangled and broken in front of him.

And only because Pete had upset Martin and made him cry, Pete believed that whatever happened to Martin was his fault.

Every time he saw the Boggart, all he could see was himself hurting Martin, sometimes.

Most times, though, Martin was simply unresponsive.

“Pete? Pete?!” Ryan Ross’ voice snapped him from his morose thoughts. He eyed him carefully. “You okay, mate?”

Pete nodded, slowly, still trying to remember Martin.

All he remembered were his eyes, but even he couldn’t quite remember the color.

 

(Tony)

 

It was only after their first lesson of the day, Herbology, when Vic Fuentes became sick that afternoon. Perhaps it had been the combined heat from the greenhouses with the impending full moon, but Vic had thrown up into his Snargaluff tree. His friend, Tony Perry, instantly offered to take him to the Hospital Wing before their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson later that afternoon.

“I-I’m fine,” Vic groaned as he heaved into a bucket in the Hospital Wing while Madam Marsh set to work collecting a potion to cure him.

“Are you sure you don’t need to spend the night?” asked Tony wearily with a raised brow.

“Don’t be silly. I’ll meet you in class, alright?”

“I’m not leaving you here alone!”

“H-honestly,” Vic breathed, “you know this always happens. I-I always catch something from me mum.”

Tony’s lips were pursed in a tight, taut line before he finally murmured to Vic, “I know the truth, Vic.”

Instantly, the sick boy’s head appeared from the vomit-filled bucket. He wiped a stray bit of phlegm off his mouth with the sleeve of his robe and stared at Tony, mouth agape, before stuttering, “W-what?”

“Vic, I’m not daft. I know what happens to you every month.”

“H-how--?” Vic’s mind was reeling, wondering where along the lines of his well-kept secret, had he slipped up. “Did Ke--?” But Vic couldn’t even utter his name as the painful thought of Kellin Quinn leaking his darkest secret to the school made him feel nauseated.

“Kellin didn’t tell me anything,” whispered Tony, “He didn’t need to. I realized for my own when we were in our third year together.”

“How?”

“I care about you, Vic. Don’t you think I was going to do some research when I noticed how awful you looked?”

“Th-then why haven’t you said anything to me?”

Tony shrugged and sat at the foot of the cot. “I was going to, but it was your secret to share and not mine to question. A-and believe me, I haven’t told a soul and would never. I was never even going to let you knew that I knew, b-but then you and Kellin had a falling out. Vic, I can’t let you tackle this disease on your own.”

“It’s not a disease,” he mumbled in return, “I’m a monster.”

Tony snorted, “Hardly.”

Vic’s face hardened and he pierced Tony with a hard stare. “How are you not frightened?”

“Of you?” At this, Tony chuckled. “Vic, you pluck your eyebrows.”

“S-so you’re not scared?”

Tony laughed again, “Do I have to reiterate? Vic, you pluck your eyebrows. I’m hardly shaking in my trainers, here.”

Vic sighed. “You’re a mate, you know that, Tony?”

“O’course!” Tony beamed his big, toothy smile and threw an arm over Vic’s frail shoulders. 

They sat like that for a moment, just Tony and Vic, sharing a bond and a secret that Vic thought had cursed him instead of blessed him. But he was wrong. There was some sense of blessing, here: he truly did have a best friend.

Finally, Madam Marsh administered the potion and sent Vic and Tony on their way to Defense Against the Dark Arts, running extremely late.

“Shite!” Vic exclaimed, “We’re going to be late for second hour!”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Calm down, Victor. It’s the first day. Besides, you look sick as it is. That’s our late pass.”

“Do you have to use my transformations as an excuse?”

“Of course, Vic,” replied Tony, “What do you think my unofficial excuses were the past years for not doing homework?”

“How are my transformations keeping you from doing your homework?”

“Because, Victor, my dear friend. I stay up late fretting over your well-being.”

Vic snorted, “If you’re up all night, I’m sure you have time to do your work.”

“I’m sick with worry,” Tony said before breaking into a Celestina Warbeck song. “ _I’m sick with something they can’t cure. Not with a wand to wave. Or a cauldron to stir. No-o-oh! I’m sick with something they can’t fix. Could it be your gaze? Or your enormous di-_ -!”

“Tony!” Vic hissed, quieting his friend’s out-of-tune falsetto, “That’s not how the song goes! There are first years in the corridors!”

Tony merely chuckled and nudged Vic with his shoulder. “Least it cheered you up. I know how you get when it’s your time of the month.”

Vic gave Tony a stern look. “You know I don’t want you calling it that. Everyone’s going to think I’m a bloody girl or something!”

“Bloody girl is actually a pretty accurate description,” Tony giggled like a bloody girl, himself.

“Tony!” Vic scolded, again.

“Fine, fine,” Tony tried to control himself. “How about your ‘furry little problem’?”

“Someone will think I’ve some nasty rabbit at home. No.”

“Or a very hairy mother,” Tony said, failing to keep a straight face and falling into another fit of giggles as he and Vic reached the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, already a spectacular twenty minutes late.

“Nice of you to join the class,” the new professor spoke, snidely, when the two of them entered the room. Not a single head looked up to see the newcomers to the classroom (though Vic could immediately point out Kellin’s head, nose pressed to the parchment). Everyone sat in their chairs, obediently bent over their work, quills scratching against the parchment. Not a single whisper in the room. “Mr Perry and Mr Fuentes, I presume.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Vic stammered, face flushing furiously from anxiety. He hated being late. Hated disappointing teachers. Hated when first impressions went bad. Hated the disease that disabled him.

“He fell ill, sir,” Tony stepped in, “and I had to take him to the Hospital Wing.”

The professor stood there and surveyed the two of them, sneering with his steely eyes and pointed face and thinning gray hair and his absolute perfect resemblance to a giant pile of rotting onions (and why couldn’t Vic even remember his name?!). “I’ll see you two at the end of the day, then. Six o’ clock for detention. No one arrives late to my class, no matter the reason.” His eyes lingered on Vic for a split second before pointing to their assignment written on the blackboard and barking at them to get to work.

The two boys scampered to their seats, only looking up once to copy the assignment from the board: _Due at the end of class, a one page thesis on chapter thirty-seven’s view of werewolves and why they are considered half-breeds and not human beings._

Vic stared at the blackboard, hating this Professor Blackwood.

 

(A Greeting with Maddie Carina)

 

Dinnertime rolled around, but it was nothing as spectacular as the Welcoming Feast last night had been. Austin sat alone at the Ravenclaw table, shoveling beans into his mouth aimlessly as he stared at the _A History of Magic_ textbook propped up against his goblet of pumpkin juice. With his N.E.W.T.s coming up at the end of term, Austin’s classes were already starting out to be rather rigorous with coursework. Besides, without Alan beside him, Austin hardly had many people to talk to.

He was just reviewing last year’s lessons on Giant Wars when a figure fell into the seat beside him, grabbed a dinner roll from in front of him, and knocked over the goblet of pumpkin juice all over Austin’s book.

“Oh, Merlin….” Austin groaned to no one in particular.

“Sorry, mate,” Alan’s voice mumbled from around the roll as Austin looked over to see it was very much his red-headed friend. Without another word, Alan pulled his wand from his pocket, tapped Austin’s book, and nonverbally charmed the spilled pumpkin juice off the book.

Austin admired that about Alan: he was much better at practical magic than Austin- not that Austin was awful at school. He understood the logistics of spells and understood theoretical magic much better than he did the practical knowledge of spells. In fact, Austin was best at Arithmancy.

“Wotcher?” asked Alan.

Austin shrugged. “Preparing for N.E.W.T.s.”

“This early?!” exclaimed Alan. “Aus, those are months away.”

“I’ve already planned a study schedule. I won’t get too carried away.”

“You need to learn to let live.”

“I live!” insisted Austin.

“By the rules.” Alan shook his head. “Introduce a little anarchy.”

Austin quirked a brow. “And end up in Azkaban?”

Alan snorted, “I hardly think being a little spontaneous will have you being chased down by Aurors. Crikey, Julia runs about higgledy-piggledy, and she’s a bloody Auror!”

Austin felt his face burn as bright as Alan’s head, and his hands trembled as he tried to spoon some soup into his mouth. “S’not that simple, Al. I want to be an Auror, too. I can’t disappoint, Mum. I don’t have time to be ‘higgledy-piggledy’.”

“She’d only be disappointed in you if you waste your life trying to please her and live by societal rules.”

With a mouthful of soup in his mouth, Austin couldn’t quite respond. But he didn’t need to when he caught the eye of someone else rather engaged in listening to the conversation. It was a rather petite girl with honey-colored eyes and ebony hair that fell to her shoulders like silky veils. She had full, pink lips and thin, arched brows that only emphasized the exquisite aesthetics of her face.

“Austin, this is Maddie, my new girlfriend,” Alan introduced with a smile on his face. “Maddie, this is my best mate, Austin Carlile.”

She shook his trembling, slightly sweaty, hand and smiled with flawless teeth.

Meanwhile, Austin marveled the simple theoretic of beauty. There was nothing more to the concept than lines and contours and patterns made up in a single diagram. As Austin’s mother would say, Maddie had a winning ticket in the genetic lottery.

Austin tried to compare himself to her, but his aesthetics fell short. He was terribly tall and gangly with terrible proportions. His shoulders were much to proud, his legs way to long, his chest seemed sunken in with the pouch of his stomach hanging, and his nose, alone, took up too much of his face.

Maddie was a set of patterns that integrated flawlessly with each other.

Austin’s patterns were just the combined faulted body parts leftover from perfect people like Maddie Carina.

Maddie muttered something to Alan about having promised to meet up with a friend in her common room, and she kissed him affectionately and eagerly on the lips before bobbing out of the Great Hall.

“Isn’t she gear?” Alan smiled.

Austin nodded. 

Maddie really was gear.

Austin supposed the only thing he didn’t like about her was the only thing he couldn’t tell Alan: that Alan was dating her and not him.

He wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened. He couldn’t even be sure if these feelings for Alan had been there all along and Austin had only now just known what to name them. Regardless of that, Austin Carlile had done the one thing everyone warned you not to do. He had done something reckless and stupid. He had fallen in love with his best friend.

 

(Alex’s Feelings)

 

“You spike Barakat’s cauldron today with a love potion, then, Gaskarth?”

“Fuck off, Saporta. You didn’t have to be partners with Travie. You just can’t help running around like a puppy trying to please him.”

Gabe laughed, “Honestly? You know Travie is one of the only decent blokes in Slytherin, Alex. And it wouldn’t hurt to be close with someone like him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Whatever happens in Slytherin, Travie knows about. Have to hand it to the bugger, he knows his shit.”

“Like what?”

“At the Welcoming Feast, he was telling me how Voldemort’s movement was more than just a few Pureblood supremacists hitting the bottle. They’ve got support.” Gabe put a free arm behind his head to rest on. “And what do you know, that night, you and the missus see the Dark Mark hanging above Hogwarts.”

“Bellamy said it was probably a joke,” said Alex.

Alex, Gabe, Pete, and Ryan had skived out of dinner early, after wolfing down their food and promising an always hungry Gabe that they’d nick food from the kitchens that night if he’d sneak out behind the Quidditch Pitch with them. After all, there was never a good moment to talk in private, being from different houses, and Alex wanted a smoke.  
Sharing an Everlasting, Alex and Gabe talked through mouthfuls of smoke before letting their banter die and addressing their other two mates.

“What did you birds get into today?” asked Gabe.

Ryan shrugged. “Been working on Blackwood’s homework. He’s awful, honestly.”

Pete nodded but didn’t say much as he thought of his Boggart and the memories it invoked.

“You spend too much time doing schoolwork, Ross,” said Gabe, “Don’t you do anything else?”

“Besides being pressured into things by my no-good mates?” Ryan asked and when Gabe nodded, he sighed, “No, I suppose I don’t.”

“Whatever happened to the Gobstones Team you were president of?” asked Pete.

“Got sick of it.”

“What about your Wizarding Chess Team?”

“Got kicked out of it.”

“How do you get kicked out of the chess team?!” Gabe asked incredulously.

“When your dog at home chews your pieces to bits, and you have to charm random objects to take their places,” answered Ryan moodily, “Apparently, that’s against the rules.”

“You should join the Quidditch Team, Ry,” suggested Alex.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Gabe, “The whole Hufflepuff team is filled with prats, Ry. You need to fix it up for them.”

“I can’t fly,” Ryan reminded his friends.

“When has that ever stopped Alex?”

“Need I remind you Gabe that I am captain of my Quidditch team, and you are not of yours?”

“Semantics.”

“You could do it, Ry!” Pete clapped his friend on his back. “You’re always saying your mother would’ve been more proud had you played Quidditch. Not harm in trying, eh?”

He bit his lip. “I’ll make an arse out of myself.”

“You just need the right coach.”

“I don’t want to be the only sixth-year taking flying lessons,” Ryan wailed. “Can’t you two teach me something?”

“I’ve got to plan try-outs for the Gryffindor team,” said Alex apologetically.

“Why don’t you post a bulletin in the Entrance Hall looking for a coach?” suggested Pete.

Heaving a sigh, Ryan nodded. “I-I guess I could try….”

“You weren’t too bad last time you flew,” said Alex.

“That was two years ago at your house! And I fell of my broom!”

“Only because you chickened out when the broom flew too high.”

Ryan fell silent and began picking at the grass to alleviate his racing mind. He really did want to get involved in something. He was sick of his friends all having something to do most of the time: Alex and Gabe with Quidditch and Pete with Prefect duties. Some days, it felt like Ryan was alone.

“So…,” Pete changed the subject mindfully, “what did happen with Jack today, Alex?”

“He abhors me.”

“Have you apologized to him yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he wouldn’t accept my apologies anyways. I’m not going to make a fool of myself.”

Pete shook his head and watched Alex greedily puff away at the cigarette, stress rising. “You’d take pride over progress, then?”

“There’s not going to be progress,” Alex ground out, “I love Tay.”

“Then why can’t you get Barakat out of your head?” asked Pete.

Alex fell silent and tried to distract himself by puffing away on the cigarette, even though it was nothing more than a lifeless butt.

Around them, night had fully fallen. The sky was no longer a pale lavender and forget-me-not blue. Instead, it was inky and almost lethal just as it had been last night when the skull and serpent had been present in the sky. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex watched Gabe form a ring of smoke before blowing a straight line of it through the center as though he were crudely recreating the scene for Alex.

The Gryffindor boy gulped and tried not to think so much, even though much more than Jack Barakat was making him sick inside.  


(His Name was Nameless)

 

Ten minutes until curfew.

Gerard’s tongue poked out of his mouth, and his nose touched the page of the notebook he was drawing in. His lines were elegant and refined, much more professional looking than the rudimentary sketch he had drawn last night.

It was an image that he couldn’t banish from his head: the boy at the docks.

Sure, Gerard hadn’t seen a face to him; and sure, Gerard knew he was nothing more than a poverty-stricken Muggle, but there was something about him that had become so fixating for Gerard to focus on.

He knew what it was: tattoos.

That had been the main indication that the boy had been a Muggle. The boy had tattoos that wound their way up his biceps. He remembered distorted images of the sick pieces of art that had been inked into his body. There had been vibrant colors like Gerard had never known linked to terribly depressing pictures. 

Growing up in the wizard world, Gerard had never seen an actually person with tattoos. The only wizards notorious for tattoos were either in cults or Azkaban, or sometimes both. There had been something positively rebellious about the way the boy at the docks had donned his.

Seven minutes until curfew.

Gerard sighed and stared at the unfinished drawing. The tattoos were rough sketches, and the body proportions were finished; the only thing Gerard had been unable to fill in was the boy’s face. So he had drawn in a cigarette and made the boy’s face nothing more than a shadow of smoke, the way it had been in Liverpool.

Closing the notebook, Gerard stared around the empty library and decided to head down to the dungeons. 

The nameless boy in his notebook nagged the back of his mind the entire trip to his bed.

 

(Patrick’s Discovery)

 

At eleven o’clock, Patrick began patrolling the fifth floor with the fifth year Gryffindor prefect, Joe Trohman. The two had nothing to talk about, so most of the walk around the floor had been covered in silence.

But that didn’t bother Patrick. He liked being lost in thought. Most people thought he was rude when he didn’t talk, but it was anxiety mixed with racing thoughts that ran like intricate webs through Patrick’s mind that inhibited words to flow from his mouth in complete thoughts.

Patrick Vaughn Stump wasn’t miserable- far from it. He’d had a fun childhood and an even greater family, despite the fact that he was the only wizard in his family (although, his mother claimed that her grandmother had been a witch, but Patrick had been around seven when she passed away and couldn’t quite remember the elderly woman). In fact, Patrick Vaughn Stump had next to nothing to complain about. Everything in his life had seemed ethereal.

Still, whenever Patrick caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror or reflective surface, he felt a pit fall into his stomach. His mouth dried up, and nausea flooded to the back of his throat. It wasn’t that Patrick was horrified with the way he looked; in fact, he looked much better than he ever had before.

He had shed his geeky exoskeleton that he’d worn through most of his life and replaced it with a look that gave him greater confidence.

He’d cut his hair short and found glasses that complimented his face better. He’d had to slim out (though that hadn’t exactly been his doing), and his complexion seemed smoother and his jaw more aligned and his cheekbones higher. 

But he still felt sick every time he looked in the mirror as he remembered the cost of this new appearance and the pain of the reconstructing that he’d endured for an entire summer.

Nobody knew his secret. 

Nobody knew what had happened at the end of last year. Quite frankly, though, the only thing Patrick was sure he remembered was the bright red light being flung at him before he had been plunged into darkness and excruciating pain….

“Patrick, look!” gasped Joe, suddenly jolting the prefect from his thoughts.

Patrick’s eyes (crystal blue) followed Joe’s pointing finger to a bulletin that had been hung on the stone wall in the corridor. It was covered in several flyers all bearing the same words:

  
**MUDBLOOD = DIRTY BLOOD**   
**CLEAN UP HOGWARTS.**   


 

 


	6. Saturday

 

  
_**WANTED:** _   
_A Quidditch coach, preferably one who’s had experience on a house team. Must be willing to work with the unteachable._   
_If interested, contact Ryan Ross (Hufflepuff)._   


 

(First)

 

The end of the first week had finally arrived, much sooner than many students had anticipated. But that was the way that time seemed to work at Hogwarts. Already the teachers had begun to assign more homework, many were starting to stress the importance of the O.W.L.s and the N.E.W.T.s. Even the sixth years received the brunt of these lectures as the teachers drilled into their heads that next year determined the rest of their career in the wizard world.

So it was with great appreciation that Saturday came, and the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were treated to a weekend break. And although there were no Hogsmeade visits, it was simply nice for the student body to lounge in the common rooms or lay beside the lake, soaking in the summer sun before the autumnal storms and chilled weather blew in.

Unfortunately, the first Saturday of September was also the day that Head of the Auror Office, Mr. Bellamy, flew back over to Hogwarts to investigate the propaganda posters that had sprouted up.

He called Patrick Stump, one of the original founders of the posters, to his office.

“Around what time would you say this poster appeared?”

“Eleven?” squeaked Patrick, feeling as though he were being interrogated rather than simply giving a witness testimony.

“And there were originally only one, correct?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “But once we spotted the first one and began walking down the corridor again, they sprang up all over the walls.”

Bellamy muttered to himself and finished penning Patrick’s testimony on the scroll he had splayed across the desk.

“No one was spotted in the corridors that night?”

“No.”

“Nothing strange from earlier that day?”

“No.” Patrick shook his head insistently. “It was completely arbitrary.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stum--” The surname had barely rolled off of Bellamy’s tongue before he pierced Patrick with a sharp gaze and assured him calmly, “We will find them. Last year will not repeat itself. You have my word.”

Patrick nodded and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He could still remember the incident, rich in his mind with the sharp, distinct images and the bright light. He could remember laughter, too. And crying.

“I-is Hogwrats safe?” Patrick finally asked the question that had been gnawing the back of his mind since he and Joe had seen the posters.

“Of course. You and the other Muggleborn students will be safe,” said Bellamy. “I’ll personally make sure of it.”

“Th-thanks,” stuttered Patrick before standing up and striding out of the room, taking one more glance behind him at Bellamy.

There were dark rings under his eyes, his face was pallid and gaunt from the weight of this investigation and the uprising of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. He looked much stronger, and presented himself much stronger, than the stressed lines of his face would indicate. Bellamy peeled off his robes and allowed himself to sit in a button-up shirt with a pair of suspenders keeping his trousers up. Patrick smiled because Bellamy reminded him of a detective off the Muggle telly shows he loved dearly.

But reality wasn’t like the silver screen. Not everyone deserved happy endings.

 

(Two Years Ago)

 

“You should go to Professor Flitwick. That git can’t give you detention because of your… _problem_.”

“Can and did,” replied Vic morosely. He was laying in his bed in the Ravenclaw dormitory, too ill to move. Thankfully, though, he didn’t have classes today and was able to spend as much time as he pleased moaning through the pain and getting sick on a bucket Tony had conjured up for him. “‘Sides, it’s no use. You saw what the first assignment of the year was. It’s obvious he’s not happy about my enrollment in Hogwarts.”

“And it’s none of his damn business, is it, Vic?” roared Tony, and even Vic had to force a smile through the pain at that. Ever since Tony had admitted to Vic that he’d known his the secret of his lycanthropy, he had been nothing but supportive in ways that Vic truly needed right now. “Dumbledore’s the headmaster. And if he has no problem with you being here, then Professor Blackwood can stuff it!”

Vic squirmed. “But I don’t want him to give me a hard time because I went and blabbed to Flitwick over a _detention_. I already served it, anyways.”

Tony opened his mouth to speak; but at that moment, Kellin entered the dormitory looking run-down and more miserable than Vic had ever seen him in a while. Fleetingly, he glanced at Tony who was pacing the room and even stole a glance at Vic, eyeing the bucket of sick a moment too long, lips pursed in a thin line.

But simply looking at Kellin hurt Vic way too much, and he forced himself to shut his eyes and keep the bile in the back of his throat at bay. There was a change about Kellin Quinn that Vic was sure had never been there when the two had been chummy. Kellin used to ooze liveliness in a way that Vic had never seen before. He had a laugh that sounded like blistery winds and the sea slapping against rock and all the summers he and Vic had spent together at the pier in Blackpool, and now that laugh sounded like a hollowed echo that petered out as quickly as it started when Vic heard him talking to his friends.

_The July sun shone down upon the pier, late in the evening. The sun had begun to set below the horizon, peeking out in an orange arc that looked like a halo above the sea. Around the sun’s burning body, a fuzzy pink and purple sky knitted together, shining brightly through the tufts of clouds. All around the two boys, whose legs swung over the pier and dangled above the lapping currents, heaven had descended for a moment such as this._

_“Why are you friends with me, Kel?” Vic’s voice was nearly a whisper beneath the harsh rumble of the wind and call of the gulls._

_The other boy frowned. “What do you mean?”_

_“Y-you know what I am,” stammered Vic. He tried to avoid looking at his friend and his eyes. Vic was always afraid that one day those warm pools of blue iris would dissipate before him and he’d be met with a glacial stare._

_“Yeah. You’re a person.”_

_“Kellin, I’m a monster!”_

_“Having a disease doesn’t make you a monster, Vic,” said Kellin softly, his voice like a silk ribbon wrapping around the other boy._

_“But there’s no cure for this disease. I’m volatile. I-I could kill you!”_

_“You could, but you won’t.”_

_“How do you know?!” exclaimed Vic, flabbergasted. He didn’t know why he couldn’t simply be content with the fact that he had a friend like Kellin._

_“Because, Vic, you’re my best friend,” whispered Kellin, “I wouldn’t even care if you were contagious.”_

_“Don’t say things like that!” Vic snapped. “I am contagious.”_

_Kellin raised his head and stared into Vic’s own eyes. Kellin’s were a clear blue the color of the sky and the seas, and Vic wondered if he could count the salt in the water. “I don’t care.”_

Snapping out of his nostalgic reverie, Vic realized the dormitory had been emptied. Kellin had left as had Tony. The bucket beside his bed was emptied and cleaned out, and on the nightstand there was a bar of Honeydukes chocolate undoubtedly left by Tony.

Vic smiled.

 

(O.W.L.s)

 

Midday left Spencer Smith meandering, alone, down the corridors to the fourth floor with a strut in his step and confidence in his gaze. He only ever walked this way with Brendon when they were attending their Muggle Studies classes twice a week, but today Spencer walked alone and passed the familiar classroom without a double-take.

He had sat in the Gryffindor Common Room for most of the morning trying to decide what to do with his first Saturday of term off. Finally, Spencer decided there was only one thing that had intrigued him that week.

He rapped his fist on the office door.

“Come in,” the familiar voice inside called.

Spencer walked into the professor’s office and looked around at the quaint room. It was rather empty- much emptier than other teachers’ offices, Spencer supposed. There was a braided rug in the center of the office, much too small for the allotted space; unmoving black-and-white portraits of an ordinary man with thick classes and a guitar, of cats, and of an elderly couple sitting on rocking chairs on a porch in the country; a shelf covered with books titled _From Cradle to Cat: A Guide to Raising Kneazles_ , _The Unofficial Buddy Holly Biography_ , and _An Encyclopedia of Muggle Technologies_ ; and in the epicenter of the room was an equally cluttered desk adorned with framed photographs (all unmoving), what looked like Muggle photograph film and Muggle bolts, and a flickering candle that changed color.

Spencer tried not to look as awestruck as he was when Professor Walker spun his chair around to lock eyes with Spencer. “Can I help you, Mr. Smith?”

But Spencer quickly looked down and found himself entranced with Jon’s hands. They were rough and littered with calluses, he had trimmed fingernails, cuts across his fingers and a bandage on his left ring finger, but struck Spencer the hardest was what he was holding. It was an ordinary beverage bottle with a dark bubbling liquid. Wrapped around the bottle was a red label reading the foreign words, _Coca-Cola_.

Quickly, Jon noticed what Spencer was staring at and shook the bottle. “It’s a Muggle beverage,” he explained, “From my private stores. Would you like a taste?”

Spencer nodded and watched as Jon swished his wand to conjure a glass and tipped some of the liquid into the cup. It frothed and fizzed and almost crackled at Spencer as he accepted the foamy liquid that eventually settled down into a stagnant brown.

“Well….” Jon raised his bottle and clinked it against Spencer’s cup, “to a magical year!”

Spencer brought the cup to his lips, tipping it forward and letting the foreign flavor fill his mouth. It was a strange flavor. It was a sweet and fizzy flavor that cascaded down his throat in gulps. There was almost a hint of vanilla in it that Spencer couldn’t quite place before he had downed the entire cup. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth and set the glass on the desk only to watch Jon mimic his actions and stare up at him questioningly.

“Th-thanks.”

“No problem,” said Jon, smiling languidly to himself. “It’s one of the overlooked aspects of Muggles, I suppose. We do so much staring at the stars, here, but sometimes we forget about all that’s happening on Earth.”

“They definitely don’t get enough credit from our community,” agreed Spencer.

“So what did you want, Mr. Smith?”

“Uh-- you can call me Spencer.” He bit his lip and stared coyly back of Jon. “Y-you know, since you let us call you ‘Jon.’”

Jon laughed, and it was a gruff, almost raspy sound that made the hairs on the nape of Spencer’s neck stand straight up as though he’d been dunked in ice-cold Coca-Cola. “Touché, Spencer.” He paused once more to take a swig of his drink, smacked his lips and began again, “What brings you to my office, then?”

Spencer thought fast. “I’m worried about my O.W.L.s,” he blurted out.

Jon blinked. “Spencer, those exams are months away.”

“But they determine the rest of my academic career!”

Jon chuckled, “I highly doubt your Muggle Studies grade is going to affect any future career you have in mind.”

“I don’t want to flunk the class,” spluttered Spencer.

“No, but you shouldn’t stress yourself with the examination. They’re hardly strenuous.”

Spencer shrugged, feeling defeated.

Jon smiled. “Besides, you seem like a bright student, Spencer. You’ll do fine.”

Biting his lip, Spencer tried not to smile, but his eyes shone with delight and his face lit up. “Thank you, Jon.”

Jon nodded and stood up. “Now I’ve an appointment to make. If you ever need anyone to talk to, or perhaps anyone to share a nice beverage with, you’re welcome to stop by my office anytime.”

With that, Spencer hurried out of the room and only stopped walking when he was two floors above Jon Walker’s office before he let out a giddy squeal and leaned against the stone wall for support. Closing his eyes, Spencer knew that he’d never quite met a more attractive, or interesting, wizard that Professor Jon Walker. He made mental plans to return to his office as soon as possible before trooping back towards the Gryffindor Common Room.

His mouth still tasted like Coca-Cola.

 

(Why Jack Hates Alex)

 

It happened when they were in their third year, around Christmas.

Alex Gaskarth and Gabe Saporta had just finished blowing up the broom cupboard next to Filch’s office with a miraculous spell they’d just discovered (Pete and Ryan had gone home for the holidays). They had run off and separated at the first floor in order to make it harder for Filch to track them down. Gabe had run into the girls’ loo on the first floor and hidden in a stall (eavesdropping on a gaggle of third-years discussing who they fancied, as well), while Alex had run to the second floor only to scout out another broom cupboard (that is after he trailed the soot from the explosion into a secret passage entrance before cleaning his shoes with magic). 

Regardless, on 21 December, 1972, Alex Gaskarth stumbled into a very-much occupied broom cupboard on the second floor.

That was where Jack Barakat came in. Jack had been thirteen and inquisitive and very daring. He was the son of the founders of Quality Quidditch Supplies and had two equally successful older siblings: May was Head Girl and her Quidditch playing was bringing in important scouts from the league, while Joe was beginning a career at the Nimbus Racing Broom Company. All in all, Jack Barakat already had a lot to live up to.

He was also well-liked by his peers, people laughed at his jokes, he only goofed off in class to an extent as he still received decent marks, and he was, up until that moment, chummy with his Gryffindor dormitory mate, Alex Gaskarth.

And Alex was chummy with Jack. In fact, had Alex and Gabe not had a profound bond, then Alex was sure Jack would be his best mate. But Jack was definitely his best Gryffindor mate. Alex helped Jack practice to earn a place on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team with him, they finished homework together, smuggled food from the kitchens at midnight together, and they partook in playful arguments over whether the Wigtown Wanderers or Ballycastle Bats were the best.

That was, until Alex barged in the broom cupboard and saw Jack Barakat snogging Matt Flyzik!

Instantly, the couple sprang apart and looked to the entry, flabbergasted, where Alex stood. Jack tried to stutter out a reply, but Alex had run off before it could even process in his head just how red either of their faces were.

Now, Alex was also old enough to realize that he did sort of fancy blokes. In fact, he even thought he fancied Jack. Now that he realized Jack liked to snog boys as well, Alex was elated.

He ran off to tell Gabe everything he saw. But Alex had also forgotten the first rule of rumors and secrets in a bathroom: always check if the stalls are empty, especially if you’re in a girls’ bathroom!

And that’s how word spread that Alex Gaskarth had seen Jack Barakat snogging Matt Flyzik in a broom cupboard.

That’s how Jack Barakat came to hate Alex Gaskarth that 21 December, 1972.

 

(The Detention)

 

“You will remain in this classroom and copy lines. You will not leave this detention until that phrase is copied one hundred times on parchment, understand?” Filch, who was usually in charge of detentions, spoke to the small classroom where three students, including William, were seated. He eyed them all with scrutiny through his beady black eyes before ambling out of the room, Mrs. Norris at his feet, and muttering, “In my days, we’d have hung them from the rafters. None of this silly excuse for punishment. What has lines ever taught any of these foul students?”

Miserable and exhausted from hours of homework in the library to prepare for O.W.L.s (McGonagall had packed them with extra work), William dipped his quill in ink and began copying the lines: _I will not cause trouble._

He had only reached the tenth time before his hand began to cramp from the built-up hours of studying that Saturday. But William didn’t have anything better to do. He liked the quiet life, or at least being a wallflower. He didn’t like picking fights with Slytherins, or dueling for fun, or even torturing Filch and sneaking Dungbombs into random classrooms. William did not like trouble.

However, it was with a mixture of fate and coincidence that trouble did find William Beckett that Saturday evening.

He was about twenty lines in when he began to yearn for a cigarette. William didn’t necessarily like the filthy habit he’d adopted, but it was now a stress-reliever that he couldn’t just quit.

One of the students in the classroom, a burly Slytherin boy, had just walked out of the room without finishing his lines. Another girl, a mousy little Ravenclaw, had finished in half an hour and scrambled quickly from the room as though it might combust at any moment. And William was left to himself, with seventy-five more sentences left.

William immersed himself in his work and tried to shake the cramp in his hand and the yearning to feed his addiction. 

“You look pleased,” a snide voice said behind him.

William jumped and spun around in his chair to see Gabe Saporta, arms crossed, leaning against the wall with a smirk on his handsome face.

“C-can I help you?”

“Nah, seems like you already did.” Gabe motioned to the parchment full of lines William was writing. “Imagine poor, little old me writing that many lines. Why, I think my hand would fall off from boredom, wouldn’t you say?”

Frowning, William tried to divert his attention away from the Slytherin boy. “I think you should leave,” he said softly.

Instead, Gabe did quite the opposite and plopped down on the desk William was using, nearly upsetting his inkwell.

William bit his lip and focused hard on ignoring Gabe and finishing this detention. But curiosity got the best of him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help.”

“I thought you said your hand would fall off from boredom if you wrote these lines.”

Gabe cackled gleefully, “I’m not offering to help you write these lines! Agrippa’s sake, that’s slavery.”

William raised a brow. “Then what are you here for?”

“I’m here to break you out of this detention.”

William’s eyes widened. Whatever he had expected Gabe to say, it had not been that. “W-what?”

“You heard me,” said Gabe, “I’ll break you out of here. Been doing it for years. Filch still hasn’t caught me.”

“Really? Because I hear you get quite a lot of detentions.”

“Yes, but those are for different reasons.” He shifted. “Hardly important.”

“Won’t Filch report it when I don’t turn in my lines?”

Gabe’s smug smile was positively Cheshire as he leaned and close and murmured, “Not if you get rid of any record you were in detention.”

The air in the classroom swelled stiff with a pregnant pause. “Y-you can do that?”

Gabe slid from the desk and offered a hand to William. “You helped me; I’ll help you. Tit for tat.”

“We won’t get caught?”

Gabe chuckled, “Scared?”

William stared from Gabe’s face and his testing eyes and back to his hand. Finally, heart thumping and his conscience screaming at him, William accepted Gabe’s hand.

“How are we going to get to Filch’s office?”

“Take the shortcut!” replied Gabe, leading William over to the corner of the classroom and tapping the stone three times with his wand in a triangular pattern. 

The stone sprang to life and slid to the left, showing a small crawlspace in the wall that seemed to lead on forever. Without hesitation, Gabe fell to his knees and began crawling through the passageway.

William stood awkwardly by the secret passage, anxious. He’d never snuck around the castle before, let alone snuck out of detention. William Beckett simply didn’t do things like that. He didn’t cause trouble or go looking for it!

“Live a little!” Gabe called behind him.

With one final glance back at the classroom, William dropped to his knees and followed Gabe, just in time to hear the stone door slide shut behind him. He watched Gabe ignite his wand and began following the ball of light.

They crawled for what felt like a long time. William’s knees felt battered and bruised from the coarse stone beneath him, and he felt his palms blistering. But he beat on, following Gabe around every bend and every slope that led them further and further away from William’s imprisonment.

William coughed through the built up dust. “Where does this lead?”

“Right down the rabbit hole!”

“Where?!”

“Right--” But, no sooner had Gabe begun to speak, then his hand had obviously hit the exit as the stone beneath his hand sunk a little. Professionally, Gabe levitated the brick and set it beside him so that he and William were glancing down, from the ceiling, into Filch’s office. “Well, Billiam.” Gabe looked up at him. “This part is your turn.”

“It’s William,” he corrected.

Gabe ignored him. “Break into those file cabinets and steal the parchment that said you ever had a detention.”

“If it’s this easy then why doesn’t everyone do it?”

“Because not everyone knows this passage exists,” Gabe explained, “and if you go blabbing, I’ll blab back.”

Gabe’s eyes seemed fiery and seemed like a test or a competition, so William stared into them, afraid to lose.

“Ready?” asked Gabe, not breaking eye contact.

William nodded, finally peeling his eyes from Gabe’s gaze. With shaking limbs and a nervous pitter-patter of his heart, William made the jump from the ceiling to the floor before locating the metallic file cabinets in the cobwebbed corner of the room. He pulled out his wand, tapped the padlock with an, ‘Alohomora,’ and began scrolling through the list of students’ files who had detention.

Outside the office, William began to heard footsteps.

“I think Filch is coming!” he hissed up to Gabe.

“Grab the file and get out of there!” the older boy said in alarm, “I didn’t pull off a rescue mission just to get caught!”

William gulped and struggled to flit through the files faster. The footsteps were getting closer.

He finally found his file.

There was a jingling of keys from outside the door.

William grabbed the file and slid the drawer shut, sprinting over to where the passageway was only to notice he was not tall enough to clamber up to it.

A key was being fitted into the keyhole.

“Hurry up!”

“I can’t reach!”

The key turned in the lock.

“C’mon, then!”

The lock clicked, and the door began to squeak open.

But before Filch could even catch William Beckett, Gabe had reached down, grabbed Wiliam’s hands and yanked him back into the ceiling before closing the passageway with nothing more than a hollow clink of stone.

 

(A Word on Austin Carlile and Alan Ashby)

  
They were like brothers.

Austin Robert Carlile and Alan Anthony Ashby had been friends since their first trip on the Hogwarts Express together, seven years ago. Somehow, they just fit together like two jigsaw pieces. They did everything together.

During their first year, they both nearly flunked Potions together. And in their second year, Alan tried out for the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team (and became a Beater), while he tried endlessly to teach Austin how to ride a broom, but Austin was hardly fazed that he wasn’t very good at Quidditch because Austin was good at other things such as Arithmancy and reading long, boring books and taking care of animals. Alan was a Wigtown Wanderers fan who liked to play with Dr. Filibuster’s fireworks and collect salamanders back at home. No one questioned that should become friends, despite their differences.

So when Austin was propped on the bleachers to the Quidditch Pitch reading Muggle literature, such as _Of Mice & Men_, Alan spent his time practicing maneuvers. And just like that, somehow, they bonded.

In their third year, they signed up for the same classes: Care of Magical Creatures, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes. And although Alan was terrible at Care of Magical Creatures and Austin terrible at Ancient Runes, they both passed their O.W.L.s in fifth year with seven apiece, and Austin became the Ravenclaw Prefect.

All in all, both boys were accomplished in their own right.

But their differences only connected them.

Austin lived only with his Muggleborn mother, Julia, who was sort of a mother for Alan, whose own parents were much too invested in their jobs sometimes. And Alan, with his parents as employees at the Ministry of Magic, was often able to have Austin over at his empty house to spend summer days with. And while Austin’s mother spent Christmas holidays working, he was able to spend the holidays with the Ashbys who thought of Austin Carlile as a second son to them.

It was at the end of their sixth year when Austin first realized it.

He had been reading in the bleachers while Alan had his last fly around the Pitch before the summer holidays, and Austin had looked up to see Alan stopped in midair to adjust his wand which was threatening to fall out of his pocket. It was like an epiphany hit Austin as he watched the sunlight dance around Alan’s red hair like a halo of light and watched how fluid Alan’s motions were as though he were nothing but water molecules sliding through the air.

In that moment, he realized just what Alan Ashby meant to him. Alan was like the George to his Lennie, in a way. Sure, Austin wasn’t a dunderhead, but Alan did teach Austin how to truly live. If not for Alan, Austin would take the sidelines in life. He would spend Christmas alone, and he would be alone. Alan was company for Austin, but he was more than that. He took care of Austin, and that was something Austin had never quite had the entire perks of. And it was nice.

Now, Austin was a smart boy. He knew how to greet a hippogriff, how to make a watermelon tap dance, how to brew a Forgetfulness Potion, and he even knew how to calm down a Venomous Tentacula. But Austin also knew one other thing: he also knew you should never fall in love with your best friend.

 

(A Bulletin)

 

Without his partner-in-crime, Spencer Smith, Brendon took to roaming the hallways himself with Dallon Weekes and Ian Crawford tagging along behind his quick strides. The torchlight flickered across the corridors as they magically lit themselves with each descent of the setting sun. 

“Where is Spencer?” piped Ian inquiringly.

Brendon shrugged. “He’s been way too bubbly lately. I think he fancies the Muggle Studies professor.”

Dallon made a face. “Old Professor Bartley? Has Spence gone mental?”

“No!” exclaimed Brendon, “Bartley retired. It’s a new professor. He’s younger. His name is Jon.”

“Oh, is he that scruffy looking bloke at the staff table?” asked Ian. Brendon nodded. “I thought he was a drunk who wandered in from Hogsmeade.”

“He’s scruffy, but not a drunk,” Brendon said.

“Seems too scruffy for Spencer,” put in Dallon thoughtfully, “I thought Spencer liked preened men. Remember that chap he dated in third year?”

“Spencer doesn’t date. He _goes_ on dates,” corrected Brendon. “And I think his name was Shane.”

Dallon shrugged. “Either way, that one was a real tosser. I heard last year, he broke into the Hog’s Head and got shit-faced at the bar. By the time they found him in the morning, he was suspended.”

“I heard he was expelled,” said Ian.

“No, I swear I saw him in the loo once.”

“Why were you watching him in the loo?”

“I wasn’t. I was taking a piss.”

“With him?”

“No, Ian, on him. What do you think?!”

“Settle down, you two,” barked Brendon, rolling his eyes. “We’re here to find things to do without Spencer.”

Dallon scoffed, “Maybe you are. Ian and I have many things to do without Spencer. We’re not puppies.”

“Neither am I!” insisted Brendon. “Gryffindor just gets lonely without him.”

“Maybe you should take up an extracurricular?” suggested Dallon.

“Yeah!” Ian bounced over to the notice board. “They’re looking for a Gobstones coach!”

Brendon made a face. “I don’t want to get squirted on.”

Dallon snickered, “That’s what he said.”

“What about the treasurer of the Weird Sisters Fan Club?”

Dallon thwacked Ian on the back of the head. “Nonsense. Only birds join that. Brendon will spontaneously grow tits if he joins that.”

Ian chortled, “Then you might finally land a date to Hogsmeade, eh, Dally?”

Dallon promptly thwacked him again.

“Here we go!” exclaimed Brendon, ripping a hung-up piece of parchment off the notice board. “Quidditch coach needed. I can do that!”

 

(It’s Sort of Cliché)

 

He was sick of all this.

He was sick of feeling this way, of being lonely, of having no friends, and of being the brunt of everyone’s jokes.

Gerard Way positively hated Hogwarts. It wasn’t that he hated learning or was homesick often, but Gerard was simply sick of the wizards and witches who also inhabited Hogwarts with him. They were cruel and rude and ruthless when they taunted him. And they had finally found him in his favorite haunt of all: the library. 

They’d thrown a few books at his head before Gerard had snapped and was kicked out of the library by a very berating Madam Pince. With about three more hours before curfew, Gerard wandered outside the castle where the setting sun was casting oblique shadows upon the lawn. The horizon was painted a tickle-me-pink, mixed with a citrus tinge. Following the horizon, Gerard found himself strolling by the greenhouses before he noticed a lovely undergrowth growing haphazardly behind the greenhouses. 

Wavering for only a moment, Gerard approached the undergrowth cautiously before picking his way through it into a small clearing he had never known before. He smiled because of the way the sunlight cascaded onto the circle of grass. He was just about to sit and finish one of his drawings when he noticed that he was not alone in the clearing.

Another figure was laying on the grass, head propped on one of his arms, and his other arm holding a cigarette which he inhaled thoroughly before letting the smoke dwindle from his mouth in disorientation. He had obviously heard Gerard’s footsteps, for he rotated his head to stare at him.

“S-sorry,” stammered Gerard as he looked into the face of Frank Iero, “I-I didn’t know anyone was here. I-I’ll leave.”

Gerard began backing out of the clearing when Frank spoke, “Stay.”

It was a single syllable, but Gerard had never felt the gravity of a word like that before. He couldn’t decipher whether it was a plea or a command, so he took a seat a meter from Frank’s laying body.

“It gets stuffy in the castle,” muttered Frank, although the statement didn’t seem directed at Gerard so much as himself.

Gerard hummed in agreement.

It was kind of cliché, what Frank was doing: smoking alone outdoors. But Gerard didn’t mind because it was kind of cliché what he was doing: drawing a boy he had never met before.

“I get pushed around,” admitted Gerard, surprising himself.

“I know,” sighed Frank, “I’ve told them off for it.”

“W-why?”

Frank raised a brow, but he didn’t even glance at Gerard. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you stand up for me?” Gerard asked cautiously. “N-not that I don’t appreciate it! It’s just, you don’t know me.”

“You don’t know me, but you stayed here,” countered Frank.

Gerard sighed and fell back into revered silence, taking in every single feeling he could from this moment because it was strangely peaceful. He liked the feeling of the summer breeze on his face and the miasma of kaleidoscope colors from the sunbeams and the refreshing scent of bluebells. For some reason, he wanted to remember this poignant moment marked only by the intervals of silence between the two strangers.

“Why do you smoke?” asked Gerard.

“I’ve heard all the preaches before,” replied Frank in exasperation.

But Gerard shook his head quickly. “I didn’t mean to tell you it was unhealthy or anything. Just wondered why.”

Frank shrugged. “I like the way it looks.”

But Gerard couldn’t really argue with that because that was why he liked drawing; that, and he knew Frank was lying.

“Why aren’t you like the other Slytherin boys?” Gerard wondered, “You don’t tease me. No one knows anything about you.”

Frank snorted derisively, “I’m not here for a popularity contest. I don’t care to be liked by anyone.”

Gerard nodded in understanding. “I envy that. I think I care too much about what people think of me.”

Frank grunted and sat up, crushing the cigarette to the ground and wheeling around to face Gerard. Their eyes met for a brief second, and it took several more seconds after that for Gerard to try and recall how many different shades of color were reflected in Frank’s hazel iris. “Look, that’s nothing more than being human: trying to gain acceptance. It’s only when we’ve reached our breaking points that we learn we don’t care to be one of the crowd. Understand?”

Slowly, Gerard nodded, but he wasn’t sure if he really did.

Frank stood up and glanced back at Gerard one more time as he made his way through the undergrowth. “My name’s Frank, by the way. Frank Iero.”

“Gerard Way.”

“Good night, Gerard,” said Frank softly as he left Gerard to his own devices in the evolving evening of that September night.

 

(Comprehension: Death Eaters)

 

She giggled. It was light and sweet and bubbly. “I don’t think we should risk it again. Last time was dreadful.”

“But, Tay.” Alex reached across the library table and grabbed her hand. “You’re a fantastic kisser.”

“So are you, Alex,” she laughed, “but strange things have been happening in the castle. I’m worried.”

“Nothing will happen to you,” insisted Alex with wide, puppy-dog eyes. “I’ll always protect you, you know that?”

She rolled her eyes. “And who’s going to protect you?”

“I’m capable.”

“Alex, you didn’t know where the library was until your third year,” said Tay tactfully.

“Because I spent those years finding out where the kitchens were.”

“And you don’t think the library is more important than the kitchens?”

“Does the library have food?” countered Alex.

She sighed, “Maybe another night, but not tonight, Alex. I love you, but I don’t want to lose my badge.”

They both stopped at that moment and stared. Tay had never said the ‘l’ word, and Alex most certainly had never said the ‘l’ word even if he said it in confidence to his friends and even if she admitted it to her diary.

She opened her mouth to stammer out an apology when Alex heard a familiar voice talking in whispers behind the shelves, and he shushed her.

“The war is coming,” said the voice, “and it’s our time to make a difference.”

It was Travie McCoy, Gabe’s Slytherin mate.

“There’s nothing we can do. We’re in school,” said another voice Alex recognized as Elisa Shwartz’s.

“Yeah,” one final voice, Matt McGinley, “though those propaganda posters were brilliant, whoever did those! Hopefully, they scared the Mudbloods out of Hogwarts.”

“And the blood traitors,” Elisa added.

Travie heaved a sigh, “That’s not what this is about- posters and fear tactics! This is about taking the future of our world in our own hands. What are we going to stand for?”

Before anymore could be said, a clumsy Hufflepuff fourth-year dropped a book on the opposite end of the shelf, and the group silenced before going their separate ways out of the library.

Alex pretended to be immersed in a book as they passed. He could feel Tay’s inquisitive eyes on him, but he couldn’t even find his voice to talk to her, let alone figure out how he was going to tell Gabe that one of his best mates may or may not be a future Death Eater.

 

(Second)

 

Before patrols that night, a prefect meeting was called by Head Boy, Kellin Quinn. It was most certainly regarding the propaganda posters that had been discovered on one of the patrols and what to do if something similar happened again.

Pete Wentz arrived early, as he always did to meetings, and sat alone in the classroom for quite sometime going over some last notes he needed to study for a quiz on Monday in Herbology. He had just become accustomed to the peaceful hush of the room when he heard unsure footsteps amble into the room.

He looked to see a mousy-looking boy with ash-blonde hair and the bluest eyes Pete had ever seen. He was short and had a plump fullness to his cheeks and to his strawberry lips that were pursed and quivering as though he were afraid of everything.

“Evening,” Pete greeted him.

His blue eyes widened as if in surprise and he said back in a soft voice, “Evening.”

“I don’t bite,” added Pete, “You can sit by me, if you like.”

The boy nodded, inhaled deeply and took the empty seat beside Pete. Instead of striking up conversation, though, he instantly stared at his shabby trainers as though they were the most interesting objects in the world.

“D-did I do something?” asked Pete, noticing how the boy seemed to want to avoid his gaze.

“W-well.” Patrick nervously scratched the back of his neck. “Y-you use to tease me.”

“What?!” Pete had never seen this boy before in his life.

“My name’s Patrick Stump.”

“Oh.” Pete remembered, “You’re Stumpy?”

Patrick nodded bashfully.

Pete remembered all the students that he and his friends had teased in their earlier years. He remembered name calls, harmless pranks, and even horrendous nicknames they used to torture their fellow student body. It had been nothing personal; they were just menaces. But they had grown up and abandoned most of that childish tomfoolery. Pete almost forgot that their victims, he was sure, weren’t going to be so fast to abandon the feelings of resentment.

“Look, I’m sorry,” said Pete, “we were young. We were stupid. We were horrible.”

“It’s fine,” Patrick said quickly, “I understand.”

“No, really!” insisted Pete, “We’re better than that, now. There’s a time when you just gotta grow up. And considering the circumstances, considering there’s a war, we’re all going to be growing up a lot sooner. A-and I think maybe some reconciliation would do us some good.”

“W-what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m sorry for teasing you, Patrick. I want to try and be a better person. Honestly.”

Patrick smiled, but he didn’t respond as the rest of the prefects filtered into the room.

No sooner had they all taken their seats than there was a boy who ran in and shouted, “Hurry! There’s a duel in the corridors!” As quickly as the meeting had started, it had been adjourned as they all ran out of the room to either watch or to put a stop to the fight.

Either way, there was way too much commotion for anyone to see what was tacked to the wall.


	7. Arguments and Apologies

During the first weekend of term, several firsts transpired in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There was the first of many lessons, the first of many arguments, the first of many apologies, and the first of many confrontations and fights that would ensue throughout the year.

This weekend also held the first of many murmurs which would prove to be quite deadly.

 

(Mudblood)

 

Trotting behind the group, Patrick Stump followed his fellow prefects to where shouts and chants were originating in the fifth floor corridor. As they rounded the corner, they finally found the two students who had begun to duel in the middle of the school. The torchlight flickered over their figures and shaped them into ominous, almost deadly, shapes that wavered in the twilight. Even their movements seemed lethal as they had thrown all grace of wand movement out the door and had substituted for choppy motions flung at each other clumsily.

“ _LEVICORPUS_!” the shorter of the two figures shouted.

The victim’s shield charm was a fraction of a second too late as they were hoisted upside down in the air by their ankle.

“IERO, YOU LITTLE SHIT!” howled the wounded voice of Michael Pedicone, a seventh year Slytherin, as he hung in the air. “I’LL FUCKING GET YOU BACK FOR THIS!”

The other Slytherin boy, Frank Iero, smiled smugly and pocketed his wand, turning swiftly around to face his punishment with a manner of pride. He looked Kellin straight in the eye.

“Can I help you?”

Kellin glared. “What is going on here?!”

Immediately, Frank’s eyes became glassy and distant, and the torchlight in his pupils only made him look dangerous in that small corridor. “Pedicone needed to be taught a lesson.”

“Dueling is not the way to solve things, Iero. I’m taking ten points from Slytherin each, and you’re both getting a detention.”

Frank crossed his arms. “Pedicone’s punishment should be more drastic.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t just go around shouting prejudiced slurs as you please!”

“What did he say?”

Frank paused, shifted, and answered, “Mudblood.”

Kellin nodded, held Frank’s dangerous gaze, before he took his wand out to let Michael Pedicone down. “I’ll have to take you both to Professor Slughorn, you know that.”  
Pedicone, however, did not seem to want anything resolved. He pointed at Frank. “This fucking tosser is volatile, Quinn! He fucking came out and attacked me!”

Frank spun around, his wand pulled out and his fingers clenched tight around it. He muttered in a redoubtable whisper, “You have no right to judge someone because of their blood.”

Pedicone brushed his robes off. “Who’s going to stop me? There’s war on the front, Iero, and blood traitors like you are always the first to go.”

“Good. I’d rather die fighting for a worthy cause than end up like you, switching sides like a coward!”

“That’s enough!” Kellin barked. “Both of you - to Professor Slughorn’s office - NOW!”

The two Slytherin duelers glared each other down one last time before following the Head Boy down the corridor. 

Head Girl, Cassadee Pope, began gesturing wildly to the group of prefects and bystanders. “Alright, move along, back to your common rooms!”

Eventually, the corridor filtered out, and Patrick slinked back to the Hufflepuff common room, alone, wondering what Michael Pedicone could have possibly said about Muggle-borns that angered Frank Iero so (and why it did).

 

(A Purge)

 

By breakfast time, the next morning, news had begun to seep around the school of the second string of propaganda posters that the student body had overlooked due to the duel that had broken out last night (which had also spread through the school like wildfire). In fact, many of Hogwarts’ more cynical students had turned the duel into a petty bet of Team Iero versus Team Pedicone (they were of course split depending on who believed in the Death Eater’s movement and who did not). Kids were jingling collection tins under other students’ noses, asking for bets on the next duel that broke out about the issue.

Of course, the treasurers had to keep it under wraps, because any teacher or prefect that found out about the bets would surely confiscate the money.

As he was walking into the Great Hall, Alan Ashby bet a Galleon on Team Iero for the next duel between either side. And one Galleon lighter, he took a seat at the Ravenclaw table, beside Austin, and stole the piece of toast from his friend’s hand.

Austin didn’t look up from _The Daily Prophet_. “Must you always nick my food? There’s an entire plate of toast on the table.”

“It doesn’t taste the same,” said Alan through the mouthful of Austin’s toast.

Austin rolled his eyes and reached for the last piece on his plate as his eyes rapidly skimmed the newspaper.

Alan raised a questioning brow. “Your mum wouldn’t like it if she knew you were reading Rita Skeeter.”

“I’ve got to keep up with the news, somehow. Besides, I heard she got sacked and rehired at _Witch Weekly_ \- something about ‘distorting the truth.’”

“Ah,” Alan chuckled, “she’ll be perfect there. That whole magazine is nothing but a gossip column. Did you manage to catch their latest article? Apparently, the German Prime Minister’s wife is off her diet again.”

The corners of Austin’s mouth twitched into a smile as he set the paper down and stared across the table at his friend. “I think they’ll be taking Mum off holiday any minutes. Things are getting worse.”

Alan frowned in collective sympathy. “She’ll be fine, Aus. Don’t worry. Julia can handle herself. She’s the first Muggle-born to become an Auror.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

Alan sighed and stole a sip from Austin’s tea. He cringed; Austin always put too much sugar in his tea. “Stop worrying so much. Julia will be fine; we all will be fine. Introduce a little anarchy.”

But Austin didn’t answer because he felt like he already did. He was already in love with his best friend, and if that wasn’t breaking the rules, then Austin didn’t know what was. However, Alan viewed anarchy a little different than Austin. Alan viewed anarchy as setting Dungbombs off in Filch’s office or taking the mickey out of someone; Austin viewed anarchy completely different. He viewed anarchy as the forbidden way he felt about Alan Ashby.

His thoughts were ended abruptly as Alan interrupted, “Wotcher?!”

Austin looked up to see Maddie Carina gliding over to the table like a graceful nymph or ballerina. She kissed Alan’s face and sat down, smiling charmingly down at the food and putting only two sugars in her tea.

Her cheeks were rosy, and her hair was like a veil of silk that hung beside her, which Alan immediately took an interest in as he tucked one of the flyaway stands behind her ear. She smiled with her petal lips and laughed like a secret melody that only she and Alan knew. 

Austin struggled to smile.

“Did you hear about the posters?” Maddie asked, sipping her tea daintily.

The two boys shook their heads.

“Someone’s been at it again,” she explained, “This time they say: Purebloods Purge Hogwarts This Week.”

Austin’s eyes widened.

Alan scoffed, “Empty threat at best. No one is purging the school while Dumbledore’s here.”

“Alan, don’t say that. Anything could happen!”

“You’re right, Maddie, but it probably won’t. The teachers will be on the highest alert.”

And he kissed her, right there, in front of Austin. Her lips tasted like two sugars in tea and whatever gloss she was wearing.

Austin immersed himself back into the paper, subtly noticing the way Alan didn’t take food from Maddie’s plate.

 

(Flying Lessons)

 

Last night’s dew was still fresh on the grass as Ryan Ross padded across the capacious lawn of Hogwarts. A borrowed school broom was gripped tight in his hand as he neared the Quidditch Pitch. His heart fluttered and quickly dove down into his stomach, and Ryan was glad he skipped breakfast because he really didn’t feel like getting vomit on his trainers.

When he made it into the Pitch, his new coach was already there, hovering in air on his broom and smiling broadly as though it were as simple as tying your laces. 

His name was Brendon Urie, and he had owled Ryan the day that the latter had posted the bulletin, and they had agreed to meet today, Sunday at eight in the morning. He was a good-looking kid who must’ve been a year younger than Ryan, himself. He had traded his school uniform for a rugged sweater and pair of black trousers. His boots were laced up his shin, and Ryan could see a pair of large black-rimmed glasses poking out from his pocket.

“Thought you were going to chicken out,” teased Brendon as he drifted over to where Ryan stood, his toes grazing the grass.

Ryan cracked a smile and shivered against the morning breeze. His own jacket was patched and frayed in several places. “You probably will. I’m the unteachable.”

Brendon laughed, his voluptuous lips parting a fraction, “I think I’m more than capable for a task like this. I could teach a troll to fly.”

“It’d probably be easier on you to find one.”

Brendon shook his head, amusement playing on his lips. He nodded towards the broom in your hands. “Can you mount it?”

Ryan nodded and mounted the broom, but he didn’t dare kick off from the ground.

“Go on, then!” encouraged Brendon.

Biting his lip, Ryan hesitated. “I like the ground a lot better.”

“It’ll be fine. I won’t let you fall.”

“I just met you,” he said, “for all I know, you want me to be flobberworm fodder.”

“I’m offended!” exclaimed Brendon dramatically, “As your instructor, I took a vow to keep your face from the fickle ground.”

“My face is already away from the ground,” croaked Ryan, “Thanks.”

“Maybe you’d feel more comfortable on my broom?” Brendon let his feet hit the floor and steadied himself.

Ryan knew he was the Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, but he had never truly appreciated the grace which Brendon rode a broom with until now.

Unsure and anxious, Ryan shook his head again. “I don’t think that’s going to make a difference.”

Brendon sighed and slid down on his broom before patting the wood in front of him. “C’mon, then. Up- with me.”

Ryan’s eyes widened. “What?!”

“That’s how I learned to ride a broom. My older brother took me for rides like this all the time.”

“How old were you?!”

“Nine or ten.”

“I’m sixteen!” exclaimed Ryan. “That’s childish.”

Brendon rolled his eyes. “It’ll get rid of your fear of falling.”

“I’m not afraid of falling. I’m afraid of heights.”

“Oh?” Brendon challenged. “What’s so scary about heights if you’re guaranteed not to fall?”

“They’re high.”

“Why does that matter? You’re not falling.”

Ryan opened his mouth to protest but shut it immediately as he realized Brendon was right. Smiling self-contentedly, Brendon patted the spot in front of him one more time and watched gleefully as Ryan gingerly positioned himself on the broom, with a bit of unease- what with his lanky limbs and apprehension to leave the ground.

“Ready?” Brendon’s voice tickled his ear, and Ryan wasn’t sure if it was that or the autumnal breeze that was making him shiver that morning.

“N--” The answer was lost in Ryan’s throat as Brendon kicked off. 

Brendon shouted in exhilaration from behind Ryan, but Ryan decided that he left his voice back on the ground. He gripped Brendon’s broomstick tight as they rose higher and higher at a rather slow pace. Then, Brendon leaned forward on the broomstick and pushed them forward towards one of the goalposts. Ryan squeezed his eyes shut as he anticipated a collision.

But nothing happened.

He opened his eyes up to realize they were flying above the stadium, staring down as if it were a miniature. Ryan began to laugh. He felt free, up here, surrounded by the clouds. Daringly, he removed his hands from the broom and raised them out to his sides to feel the way the wind whipped by his body and to feel his muscles relax with every graceful glide of the broom and gentle gust of wind.

Ryan closed his eyes and opened his mouth, laughing, as he inhaled the fresh air.

Once or twice, on their descent, did Ryan feel Brendon’s hand on his hip to ensure that he didn’t fall. Brendon’s hands were ice cold from the air above, but Ryan didn’t mind at all because when they hit the ground, Ryan stumbled off the broom, feeling giddy beyond belief.

“That - was - unbelievable!” Ryan wasn’t sure if he was laughing or shouting.

Brendon smiled. It was a big and stupid smile that made his teeth look much too large for his mouth. “I told you I wouldn’t let you fall.”

“Th-thank you.” He was breathless.

“No problem.” Brendon waved off Ryan’s gasps nonchalantly. “That’s the only way to ever really trust someone.”

“Alex always said he’d bet his entire family’s fortune on your Quidditch skills,” commented Ryan, “Now, I see what he means.”

Brendon laughed and shook his head. “Alex gives me more credit than he should.”

“I don’t exactly know about that,” said Ryan, “You’re going to make a Quidditch Team very rich in the future.”

Brendon’s euphonious laugh rang in Ryan’s ears as he trudged back up to the castle, alone.

 

(The First of Many Arguments)

 

When Alex finally found Gabe, around midday, the latter was on his way back from the kitchens where he had nicked a few treacle tarts to inhale on his marauding adventures of the day, which were still unplanned in the four friends’ agendas.

“Gabe, I have something to tell you,” explained Alex as he caught up with his friend on the first floor.

Gabe shoved the last bit of treacle tart in his mouth before leaning against the Gregory the Smarmy stature and looked at his friend. “Finally get a good shag?”

“What? No!” Alex glared. “Why is everything about sex with you?”

Gabe shrugged. “I haven’t anything else to occupy my time with?”

“So you spend it having a nice wank?”

“No, I spend it snogging birds in the broom cupboards.”

Alex shook his head. “That’s not the point, here--”

“I know. You never quite got to the point, Lex. You do spend most of your time talking in circles. I never noticed it before.” Gabe seemed thoroughly amused.

Alex, meanwhile, wanted to rip his hair out. Finally, taking a breath, Alex blurted out, “I think Travie is a Death Eater.”

For a moment, Alex thought things would be alright. Gabe was laughing, his almond eyes crinkling and his laughter ringing around the commodious hall. But when Alex remained silent and did not join in on the laughter, Gabe’s happiness trickled away and his face turned stoic.

The air felt tense.

“Gabe,” Alex expanded, “I heard Travie talking to a few students in the library. He was applauding whoever created those posters.”

Gabe shook his head. “You’re wrong, Alex. I know Travie.”

“You think you know Travie,” corrected Alex, “We’re in the middle of war, Gabe. Allegiances change!”

“You misheard.”

“Tay was with me!”

“And you were too busy thinking with your prick to interpret the conversation correctly!”

“This has nothing to do with my dick!” Alex screamed at Gabe, and a few first-years nearby giggled.

“Travie isn’t a Death Eater,” growled Gabe, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Gabe--” Alex tried one more time, but Gabe held a hand up.

He was angrier than Alex had ever seen him. “I don’t want to hear your fucking lies, Gaskarth.”

Alex’s mouth hung open uselessly as Gabe stormed away from the scene. Recovering quickly, Alex narrowed his eyes and shouted after his best friend, “You’re no different than the rest of your family, Saporta! You’re all a bunch of fucking murderous scum!”

 

(The First of Many Apologies)

 

“Afternoon, Trick.”

Patrick dropped his fork full of potatoes onto his plate, mouth agape and eyes wide. “P-pete?” He sounded like he was going to choke. “W-what did you call me?”

“Oh.” Pete smiled. “I feel bad for teasing you and calling you Stumpy. I’m trying to come up with a nicer nickname. Is that working, or should I call you Tricky?”

“Er…?”

“Patty? Pat?” 

“T-trick!” exclaimed Patrick, cheeks flushing furiously. “Trick will work just time.”

Pete grinned and doled himself some potatoes for lunch. “Excellent, Trick.”

“W-what’re you doing here?” Patrick realized that sounded rude and modified his statement immediately. “I mean- aren’t you in Ravenclaw?”

Pete shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I have to eat with my housemates everyday. My best friends are all in separate houses; we had to break some rules to have a decent meal together.”

Patrick nodded. Eating with your house wasn’t necessarily a rule in Hogwarts, but it was tradition and very few people wanted to butcher that up.

“I really am sorry for how my mates and I treated you,” said Pete again.

Patrick shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine!” he exclaimed. “We were awful to you. I want to make it up to you.”

Patrick shook his head and slammed his eyes shut. “You already have.”

“I haven’t, but I will.”

“Pete, it’s not really nece--”

“Do I know you?” Pete interrupted, staring intently at Patrick who blushed again and ducked his head down to shovel some potatoes in his mouth.

He shook his head and continued staring at the plate as he chewed his potatoes thoughtful. “I don’t think so-- I mean, besides the calling me Stumpy and whatnot.”

Pete blinked and shook his head. “You seem so familiar.”

“I just have one of those faces.”

Shaking his head, Pete said with amazement, “It’s not that. I-it’s how you act. I feel like I know you from somewhere.”

“I don’t think so,” stammered Patrick.

Pete sighed and stood up. “I guess you’re right.”

He walked away, almost dejectedly, and Patrick had to chug pumpkin juice down in order to fix his dry mouth. Having trouble concentrating, Patrick knocked down his goblet twice and kept dropping his fork as his hands shook so bad.

Eventually, he considered himself a hazard to the table and left, wandering back to his common room (falling in a trick step once, too).

Finally, when he was alone in the dormitory, Patrick pulled the curtains to his four-poster closed and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. With a shaking hand, he scrawled out to:

_Mum,_   
_School’s been jolly good and all that. Strange things have been happening, though- mainly involving posters being hung up of anti-Muggle-born propaganda. I know I shouldn’t worry - the school’s new resident Auror assured me there’d be no repeats of last year - but I can’t STOP worrying._   
_Also, Pete Wentz is trying to apologize for teasing me in the past._   
_I want to forgive him, but I don’t want to talk about what happened last year._   
_Not to mention, he’ll be bound to find out the truth if I forgive him._   
_Love,_   
_Patrick_

 

(A Proposal)

 

Gabriel Eduardo Saporta was a very arrogant, but very loyal, boy. He often fought with his best friend, snapped at girls who became clingy after casual flings, and was quite irritable in the mornings with all his friends. He sang alone to Pete’s Beatles records and was amused at the very idea of the turntable, he ate about twelve meals a day, and he was one of the top of his year.

But Gabe also had a life away from Hogwarts, and that life was adorned in riches from his family. Although he didn’t like it, his family’s name was as feared as it was revered. He came from a long-line of radical Purebloods who seemed to measure their worth by how much money was in their Gringotts vaults, how many house-elf heads they had mounted to the wall, and how many Howlers they received from their enemies by morning tea.

Gabe could not find the glamour in that lifestyle. He spent most of his time at home wandering the streets of Kensington Gore and dreaming of the day he could stand up to his father and leave the family.

Every time Gabe thought he would finally stick it to his old man, he was reminded of Diego Saporta’s temper by stinging of his back.

His thoughts raced as he sat on the Astronomy Tower with a cigarette in his fingers, puffing away ravenously in a vain attempt to cool his temper.

Gabe was hardly mad at Alex, but he had needed to escape his friend in order to sort these thoughts out for himself. Although he wasn’t angry with his friend, he couldn’t quite believe that Travie McCoy, one of his best mates, would buy into the Death Eater propaganda. He supposed it was the war that was blurring the lines of allegiances in Hogwarts.

The sound of footsteps echoed up the spiral staircase behind him, and Gabe was ready to drop his cigarette off the counter until he saw a familiar, lanky form that had appeared on the tower before him.

Upon seeing Gabe there, William Beckett turned scarlet and began to back down the stairs again. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “didn’t know anyone was up there.”

Gabe smiled, patted the stone beside him and said jovially, “Take a seat, Billiam! Breathe the fresh air of a freed man!”

William laughed nervously at the joke as he sauntered over to where Gabe sat and plopped down himself.

Gabe saw him slide a pack of Benson & Hedges out of his pocket and lit one up with the tip of your wand.

“Is everyone in Hogwarts an addict?”

“Nah.” William inhaled. “It started out as a stress-reliever, but I think I started doing it more and more to piss my father off.”

Gabe laughed, “Has he caught you with ‘em in the woodshed yet?”

“No, he hardly looks for reasons to fly off the handle the way he does. Cor, I could wave the box under his nose and he’d yell at me more for interrupting his tea.”

“Sounds like he’d get along swimmingly with my father.”

William shook his head and said meekly, “My father’s a Muggle.”

Considering for it, Gabe agreed, “My father would probably just curse him, at that rate.”

Looking uncomfortable at the talk off their fathers, William casually (but not really) changed the subject, “So, er, what are you doing up here?”

“Same as you.”

“I’m up here for an escape.”

“I can’t be as well?” 

“N-no!” William looked flustered, and Gabe smiled around the filter of his cigarette at the way his cheeks reddened and his rosy lips pursed. “I just… was wondering what you were trying to escape.”

Gabe remained silent and blew a smoke ring to the sky. Finally, he said, “Reality.”

“Oh?”

“This war’s really done my head in.”

William nodded in understanding. “Understandably. I don’t think it’s turned into an epidemic, quite yet.”

“How can you say that?” Gabe dropped his cigarette to the ground and gesticulated wildly. “You’re Muggle-born! You’re more at risk than most people in this castle!”

“I know,” replied William calmly, “but I have faith.”

“In what?”

William shrugged. “People, I s’pose. I think if you really put your trust in people- I mean, really give them the benefit of the doubt- they can rise to the occasion.”

Gabe scoffed.

“It’s not a bad way to live!”

“It’s naïve.”

“Without faith, we are less than our potential.”

“Without faith, we are free.”

“You are as moody as the rumors say,” said William in a joking tone as he flicked his cigarette butt of the tower and stood up, brushing dust from his robes.

“Glad to see I live up to expectations.”

William shook his head. “I don’t believe all the rumors, Gabe.”

“Some of them are true.”

He shrugged. “It’s hardly up to me to pick and choose which are.”

Gabe smiled sardonically. “You have faith I can rise to the occasion?”

But William’s answer was gone with the whip of his robe around the corner as he left the tower and left Gabe alone atop it, the last of their smoke still hanging in the air.

Fleetingly, Gabe glanced down at the ground below and wondered if he had faith that someone would catch him. Before he could answer himself, he jumped up and began to run down the spiral staircase, boots clunking mercilessly against the ground. He had been running so frantically that his smoker lungs wheezed and he nearly ran into the figure of William Beckett at the bottom of the staircase.

“Oi!” Gabe shouted, even though William was standing right in front of him. “Want to come to Hogsmeade with me? First one’s in October.”

William’s eyes were a deep brown that Gabe had never seen before. They were warm and inviting; they were like a warm cup of tea that Gabe needed in the mornings to keep himself from getting too irritable. 

“Yes.” William interrupted Gabe’s staring.

“W-what?” 

“I’ll go with you,” William said with a smile tugging at his lips.

And Gabe let William walk away from him for the second time that day. But for the first time that day, the war outside and the blurred allegiances around him didn’t seem like they mattered so much anymore.

 

(Confrontation)

 

“Frank! Oi, Frank!”

Frank Iero, who had been walking down the hall, turned on his heel half-expecting to see another ‘Team Iero’ supporter- or whatever that ridiculous shite was. He hadn’t meant to make a giant political statement out of the duel; he had simply meant to put a bigoted prick in his place. However, it was Gerard Way who came dashing towards him, carrying giant books in his arms and a notebook on top; he must’ve been coming from the library.

Gerard caught up to Frank, looking flustered and rather anxious regarding their meeting. “I… heard what you did to Pedicone.”

“If you’re looking to make a bet,” said Frank dryly, “I don’t have the collecting tin.”

Gerard shook his head. “That’s not it! I- uh- wanted to know why you did it.”

“What?”

“Why did you do it?” asked Gerard.

Frank shrugged. “Does there always have to be a reason? Whatever happened to spontaneity or chivalry or whatever other crap there is?”

“There doesn’t have to be a reason,” said Gerard, “but there usually is.”

“Does it matter?!” snapped Frank.

Gerard shrank back. “I g-guess not.”

Haughtily, Frank shot back, “Why does it matter to you, anyways?”

Gerard bit his lip, obviously debating whether or not to tell Frank. Finally, sighing, he answered, “Pedicone’s one of the bastards who tease me a lot. I guess I don’t really care why you did it; I guess I just want to congratulate you. So, er, thanks.”

Frank blinked in surprise.

Gerard continued to bite his lip until he saw that Frank had no intention of responding. Muttering an apology, Gerard scurried off, becoming just another face at the school.

 

(A Girl Named L)

 

He fell prey to his addictions which clawed at the back of his mind and whispered in his ear until he ceased fighting the urge and made his way out behind the Quidditch Pitch to smoke in peace. In his head, Alex kept seeing Gabe’s hurt eyes and anger at the words he had said to him. He wished he could erase that moment, but it was forever a mark upon their friendship. Their friendship would survive this argument, Alex knew that much, but something was to be said on how much the war was taking its toll upon everyone.

Alex had snuck out, after dinner, to smoke because Tay didn’t particularly like the addiction, and he couldn’t very well go to her with this issue because she didn’t particularly like Gabe Saporta, either. She tolerated him because he was her friend, but she judged Gabe the way everyone judged Gabe: she looked at his family instead of him and assumed he was no better.

She, and everyone else who judged him, didn’t know the things that made Gabe tick like Alex knew of his best friend. They didn’t know what he laughed at or how much he loved because all they worried about was his blood.

Sighing, Alex released the smoke into the September wind and closed his eyes. Last year had been much simpler. This year was complicated. Being sixteen was the worst fucking year of his life so far.

The sound of feet padding softly across the grass alerted Alex. He opened his eyes, sat up, made to hide the cigarette behind his back, and was hoping the smoke would disperse soon when he saw a young girl (and not a teacher) approach him.

She had dark brown hair made up into two plaits. Her face was young and cherub, her cheeks were red from the stinging wind, her knees were knobby, and she had large, watery eyes that sparkled like glass on water.

“Why do you smoke?” she asked suddenly.

Taken aback, Alex retracted the cigarette from behind him and took a puff. “Because.” He shrugged. “Addictions are hardly justified.”

“Sorry!” she squeaked, “I was taking a stroll, a-and I saw your smoke rings. Th-they’re lovely.”

Alex grinned crookedly. “Thanks. I’m Alex.”

“I’m L.”

She took a seat beside him on the grass, smoothing out her skirt as she sat. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen.

“Why are you out here alone?” Alex asked, “Shouldn’t you be at dinner with your mates?”

“I like to be alone,” she said airily, “Besides, I don’t have many friends besides my brother.” Alex made a pitying face at her, but she ignored it. “Why are you skipping dinner?”

“My mate and I almost got into bit of a barney, I guess.”

“Was it a good mate?”

“The best.”

“Is that why you’re smoking?”

Alex rolled the cigarette between his fingers, staring down at the dwindling ‘death stick’. “I think.”

She smiled and was lost in her own mind, just like that. L began to pick flowers and braid them into a flower crown. Finally, when she was done, she set it upon Alex’s head, giggling. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a king?”

Alex laughed, “No.”

“Why not?”

“My girlfriend says I’ve got a big head, already.”

“Compliments never hurt anyone.” She looked at him earnestly as though expecting a sudden epiphany, but Alex couldn’t think of a reply.

With the velvety night sky beginning to hang around them, she bade him goodnight and disappeared towards the inviting torchlight of the castle. He watched her go and laid back down, pulling the flower crown from his head and rolling it around in his fingers as though it held some answer she had not shared.

Her young voice echoed in his mind like an enigmatic ghost, even though Alex had a strange feeling he had known her from somewhere before.

 

(Excursion)

 

The pain was keeping him awake. He kept stumbling to the bathroom to empty his stomach, stealthily placing a Silencing Charm upon the door as not to wake his roommates. There was a burning feeling in the back of his throat and pit of his stomach, and Vic tried not to focus on the flecks of blood that spotted his puke, floating in the toilet like an omen. He gripped his stomach and moaned in pain, squeezing his eyes shut.

Vic’s lycanthropy, after nearly seventeen years, was already taking a critical toll on his health. Besides the sickness near every full moon and the transformations, Vic had to deal with his face aging much faster than it should: crow’s feet and dark bags around his eyes, mild stress wrinkles across his forehead, and he occasionally plucked a gray hair from hiss unruly mat of it. 

He stifled another cry of pain as he writhed on the floor. The full moon wasn’t until tomorrow night, but it felt as if he were transforming now. All the bones in his body were ignited with a carnivorous flame that ate at his tissues and muscles and skin until Vic felt as though he were being burned alive by the stinging sensation. His legs were numb, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it to the Hospital Wing. 

There was a knock at the bathroom door.

“Oc-occupied!” choked Vic, wondering if his voice sounded any steadier on the opposite side of the door.

Vic’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and the dancing torchlight disappeared as he was enveloped in the dark labyrinth of his mind.

All he could see was a luminous orb hanging in front of him before a shadow accompanied it.

Vic tried to move, but he couldn’t even open his eyes.

“I’ve got you, Vic,” a voice muttered. It was soothing, and Vic felt his tense muscles relax substantially.

It was Tony, Vic knew. Tony was his new hero; he was going to save Vic from himself in ways that Kellin couldn’t. 

“I’m taking you to the Hospital Wing.”

“H-hurts,” Vic cried in a hoarse whisper.

“I know.” The hands that picked him up tightened around him, hugging him to a warm chest where Vic could hear the beating of a heart that seemed to soothe him.

Vic tried to open his eyes, but he knew the nausea would hit if he did. So he buried his face closer to the beating heart and listened to its drumming. 

“I’ve got you.”

“W-what about next time?”

“I’ll always have you. I promise.”

It was the last thing Vic heard from his friend before he passed out in his arms.

 

(Hush, Hush)

 

Everyone else in the Gryffindor Tower had went to bed. Even the prefects had returned from patrols and lumbered up to their beds. However, Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith sat on the squishy armchairs in front of the fire, finishing up a final game of Wizard’s Chess that neither was particularly spectacular at.

“Brendon, can I tell you something?” Spencer asked with wide eyes.

Brendon’s face contorted into one of confusion.

Spencer was usually blunt and outright with everything he said. There were little to no secrets between the two friends, and Brendon had always liked it that way. Why was Spencer acting so strange now?

“You can always tell me stuff, Spence.”

“This is a secret,” he warned.

“I don’t gossip.”

“This is a secret you might have to take to your grave.”

Brendon resisted rolling his eyes; after all, most of Spencer’s secrets were silly things like having a crush on the drummer from the Weird Sisters. “Cross my heart.”

Spencer smiled, his face lambent in the light of the fire. He leaned in close, his giddy happiness nearly radiating off him. Finally, his voice tickled Brendon’s ears: “I fancy Professor Walker.”

Brendon’s jaw dropped. “W-what?!”

Spencer shook his head, giggling and blushing. “I can’t repeat it, and now you have to keep it.”

“Spencer, you could get thrown out for something like that. Y-you could get sacked!”

“I couldn’t help it. Have you seen him?!”

“Spencer, please tell me this is nothing serious. Please, tell me this is similar to your Weird Sisters crush.”

“My Weird Sisters crush is legit!” Spencer exclaimed, still in a hushed tone, “He wrote me once.”

“Yeah,” scoffed Brendon, “to ask you to stop owling him.”

Spencer ignored that. “The point is, you can’t tell anyone.”

Brendon blinked. “Spencer, nothing good can come out of this. You’ll only get hurt.”

Spencer’s eyes twinkled with ambition, and Brendon felt hopeless.

But, in the next seven days, it was not Spencer who was hurt at all. His ‘love’ was newly blossoming, and he had yet to become a casualty in the war.  
  



	8. What a Week

The next seven days that followed became known to everyone as ‘the purge’.

 

(Beginning)

 

He lay in the state between dreaming and waking. His head was fuzzy, as it usually was the morning after the full moon. Nerves in his body began signaling each other, relaying messages of pain back-and-forth that shook Vic in his sleep. Of course, Madam Marsh had given him a Sleeping Draught when she had fetched him from the Whomping Willow in the early hours of the morning, before she retired for a few last hours of sweet reprieve through sleep, leaving Vic alone in the Hospital Wing. He didn’t mind much; after all, he was still asleep, but he was also conscious enough to feel the pain from his transformation roll through his body.

After seventeen years of this, Vic was still not used to the pain. He inhaled sharply, eyes still closed, trying to force himself back into sleep.

The grueling stress and the internal demons that all took form of Kellin Quinn had worsened his transformation this full moon. Tony had been talking to him nonstop about meditation techniques that might assuage the transformations, but Vic didn’t want something like that. He didn’t want a temporary fix to his problem; he wanted to free of the monster that lurked inside his head.

Even somewhere between wakefulness and sleeping, Vic could still see the replays of the night in his mind. He could see himself clawing at his own wolfish form and scratching his face, he could see himself gnawing on his own limbs and howling to the moon for freedom from the Shrieking Shack, and he could see himself scraping furiously at the wood of the enchanted walls, trying to feverishly escape the chains that held the true monster inside.

Vic was jerked from his memories, back to reality, where his mind raced and his body slept on.

Suddenly, he felt a different sort of pressure upon his hand alerted him. It wasn’t painful, but it was familiar. He cracked his eyes open and saw a silhouetted figure sitting beside his bed, gripping his hand.

Vaguely, Tony’s name raced through Vic’s mind. His vision was blurry, and the hazy light of dawn that streamed through the windows hurt his eyes. He squeezed them shut and moaned pitifully. Opening his eyes hurt; and without having seen a mirror, Vic has the suspicious feeling that dried blood was caked to the lid. He could remember Madam Marsh screaming, ‘ _what happened to your eye_?’ but the thought mustn’t have registered at the time when he was pulled, groggy, from the Whomping Willow.

“You’re okay,” the figure said, and Vic’s heart leapt.

“K-kellin?”

There was a pause. “Yes.”

“K-kel, I’m so sorry,” wailed Vic, eyes still slammed shut, against his own wishes. All he wanted to do was open his eyes and be assured that Kellin was real and sitting beside his bed and holding his hand. He wanted to be assured that this was not a dream because even he couldn’t be too sure.

“Shh, Vic.” Kellin gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“I missed you,” Vic whimpered.

He could hear Kellin swallowing, and he could hear the stickiness in his throat as he responded, “I miss you, too.”

“Don’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

“Stay? Forever?”

Another pause. “Promise.”

Vic tried to move his fingers to squeeze Kellin’s hand back. He wanted to feel the familiarity in them that he had missed and dreamt about for weeks- for months. His mind ached to rememorize every line in his palm and every crease in his knuckle. However, Vic’s hands were numb from the Sleeping Draught that was threatening to reel him back in. Valiantly, Vic tried to fight it and hold onto Kellin.

He murmured deliriously, “I love you.”

There was a poignant pause after his confession, and the room swelled around Vic. The fingers were still laced with his, still rubbing lazy circles across his palm. Finally, Kellin gripped his hand tighter, almost painstakingly so, for a single moment before he pulled away. “You shouldn’t,” he finally said thickly.

Vic tried to reiterate his feelings towards his long lost friend. Even if he knew this was nothing more than a drugged reality, Vic wanted nothing more than to hold onto this dream. He wanted Kellin to be sitting beside him when the sun fully rose, and he wanted Kellin to say back to Vic, ‘I love you’ and all those little things Vic could never tell him when he was truly awake.

But Vic was slipping from reality again. The Sleeping Draught was pulling him back towards sleep.

….

He awoke with a start, what felt like hours later, but couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. The Sleeping Draught was no longer affecting his system, and he sat up, frantically searching the Hospital Wing for any signs that Kellin Quinn had been there.

However, the room was nothing more than a skeleton.

 

(Monday)

 

The dungeons were cold. Although Professor Slughorn always attempted to make his classroom most inviting (with the soft simmering flames below the cauldrons), it was still unwelcoming to all who entered it. That morning, the fifth year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were trying frantically to brew the beginnings of a Polyjuice Potion. Although they weren’t to finish the potion, Slughorn had prepared this lesson as a way to teach the fifth years about the techniques that they may be tested on in their practical O.W.L. exams.

At the moment, due to the complicated potions, the entire classroom smelled like overcooked horned slugs.

Spencer Smith stared glumly into his cauldron, which was a sickly puke-green color. “Patrick,” he whined, “I think I ruined it.”

Patiently, Patrick looked into the cauldron, wrinkled his nose from the smell, and sat back while heaving a sigh. “I think you measured the boomslang skin wrong.”

Spencer groaned, “I suck at Potions. I should just off myself and save everyone the embarrassment.”

Patrick snorted, “Spence, if you can’t even brew potions, I highly doubt you can find a foolproof way to off yourself. Besides,” he added hastily, “you’re too vain to die.” 

Glaring, Spencer crossed his arms with a pout. “What’s so wrong with wanting to bless the world with my lovely… face?”

Raising a brow, Patrick smirked. “You sure that’s the only attribute you care to bless the world with?”

Spencer stuck his tongue out at his friend. “Shut it. We all know my arse is a fine specimen, too. I don’t need your validation; I’m doing fine without it.”

Patrick shrugged and continued attempting to right the wrongs of Spencer’s mediocre potion brewing. 

Sighing, Spencer continued, “You really do think I have nice attributes, Patrick?”

Patrick grunted in acquiescence but was hardly paying attention to his Gryffindor friend.

“I mean, if I wanted any bloke, I could have any bloke, right?”

Patrick, still too busy, agreed mindlessly with Spencer, who was now continuing a soliloquy:

“Granted, not everyone likes blokes, though-- but attraction is attraction, right?-- gender or sexuality doesn’t matter, here-- well, I guess they do-- but not with as much emphasis-- I mean-- when you get to the bottom of things-- a nice bum is a nice bum, male or female-- right?-- Patrick?!”

Spencer snapped out of his reverie in time to watch their Polyjuice Potion turn from a sickly yellow-green into a rather light brown as it was supposed to be. 

“Fixed it,” said Patrick slyly before blinking up at Spencer innocently. “You were saying?”

“H-how did you do that?!” gaped Spencer.

Patrick shrugged.

“No offense, Patrick, but you’re hardly a potions master!”

He blushed. “N-no, but… I just… got lucky on this one?”

Spencer was about to say something more when Slughorn made his rounds and peered into the contents of their cauldron. Immediately, an ear-splitting smile formed on his face and he clapped Patrick on the back, booming, “Now see here, students, Mr. Stump has applied the techniques of the Polyjuice Potion perfectly! You’re a natural, boy!”

Patrick grinned modestly and mumbled to himself, “Or just had a lot of practice….”

\---

Meanwhile, in the back of the Potions classroom, separated from Patrick and Spencer, sat Brendon Urie and Dallon Weekes. They were also concocting the Polyjuice Potion, albeit they weren’t doing it nearly as well as Patrick had done. Their conversation also had more fluidity to it as both partners were contributing to the talk, rather than a one-sided oration of Spencer’s that had fallen on Patrick’s deaf ears.

“What’s eating at you, Brendon?” asked Dallon, too busy scribbling in his textbook than actually following the directions. Brendon glimpsed a rather inky and crudely drawn Argus Filch in the margins.

He shrugged, still thinking of Spencer’s dire confession to him. “Can’t really say.”

Brendon knew that his best friend often had brash ideas and even made rash decisions, especially when it resulted in a snog or a shag. Spencer was like that- not a tart, of course; Spencer simply enjoyed the pleasures of human interaction. He thought it a shame to waste all that euphoria humans were capable of feeling. The only problem with Spencer was that he often couldn’t differentiate an orgasm from love. And although Spencer would never attest to ever having been in love, he would insist that love probably felt the same as an orgasm. The real problem, Brendon supposed, was that Spencer only ever experienced love on a physical plane of existence.

That, and also, Spencer had set his sights on Professor Walker for his next partner.

Spencer wasn’t stupid, that Brendon knew too. He often spoke airily and acted empty-headed, but Spencer only did that because he was socially awkward and didn’t know any other ways to be nice, while at the same time encouraging people not to speak with him. He wasn’t stupid, but he was insatiable, and he was reckless; and that was a recipe for disaster.

Dallon Weekes wasn’t stupid, either, for that matter. He knew when he was treading through dangerous territory, and he knew when secrets should be kept to themselves. Tactically, he changed the subject. “How’s that bloke you’ve been coaching, then?”

“Ryan?”

Dallon nodded. “When are you seeing him again?”

“Friday, I think.” Brendon shrugged. “He’s not a lost cause. He’s just afraid of flying.”

Dallon raised a brow. “How’s he getting off the ground if he’s afraid to?”

“I’m helping him,” said Brendon hastily as his cheeks heated up at the memory of their flying lesson.

It had been nothing sensual to Brendon, but the intimate closeness between the two of them had definitely been more than Brendon could handle. He wasn’t at Spencer’s level. He had never even had his first kiss before- let alone shagging someone! But even he could admit that feeling Ryan Ross’ body heat radiating from him and feeling him submit himself to Brendon’s trust had felt euphoric in its very nature.

It also hadn’t helped that Brendon noticed how attractive Ryan truly was.

He was tall and lanky and looked a bit awkwardly put together with all his gangly limbs. But there was something about the angular jut of his collarbone, peeking out from his robes, and the lopsided swagger to his shoulders that seemed out of place on his body. Fondly, he remembered the way his carefully brushed chestnut hair had been swept away and tousled on the broom. He remembered the red sting of the wind on his cheeks, and the fresh indents of teeth marks on his lips where he had bit it out of fear.

Ryan Ross was hot in a strange, quirky way.

“I hope you two are working over here as much as you’re chatting?” Slughorn’s voice interrupted Brendon’s private thoughts, and he jumped. Dallon hid his snickers behind his hand and watched Brendon turn beet red.

“Only six more days, then?” smirked Dallon, as though he could read Brendon’s mind.

 

(Evening)

 

Monday evening brought with it a light drizzle that soaked the Hogwarts grounds in a filmy layer of water against the windows, which coagulated onto the grass and pattered against the canopy of trees in the Forbidden Forest until the grounds sounded like the incessant beating of timorous wings. Occasional gusts of wind sent the drizzle cascading elsewhere in a hushed spray; and many students took the break of rain beating upon the window panes as a cue to slip into their beds and fall asleep before the rain returned to their windows, cradling them to sleep with its indiscreet pattering against glass.

Laying in bed, but with no intention of falling asleep, Gabe stared up at the top of his four-poster, where he had crudely hung a large black-and-white banner of the Quidditch team, the Montrose Magpies. Beneath their logo, the seven players all smiled cheerily back at Gabe. In the center, Hamish MacFarlan, had his broom swung over his shoulder and was holding a Cup in his hands gallantly. Gabe had always wanted to meet the Quidditch Captain; in fact, he often wanted to be him. But Gabe knew that the lifestyles of the rich and famous could never accommodate themselves to fit him- not when his surname hung from him like an omen.

The door to the dormitory opened, and Travie McCoy strode in, straight from the Owlery, with a scroll of parchment gripped in his hands. “Saporta.”

“Travie,” Gabe said sickly sweet in hopes of irritating his dorm mate as was the status quo. “What’cha got there? Thought you were prohibited from taking out a subscription of _Tits & Twats_ while you were at the school?”

Travie glared at Gabe. “I’ve never taken out a subscription like that.”

“Oh did they ban _The Fanny Pack_ as well?”

Travie rolled his eyes and ignored him, indignantly skimming the letter he had unrolled.

Alex’s voice kept echoing in Gabe’s ear as he watched his mate, but he shook his head. Travie wasn’t like that. He didn’t believe in blood purity; and even if he somehow harbored those feelings, he would never act on them. 

He still hadn’t spoken to his friend since the fight; and although he was no longer mad at his friend, it was nothing more than pride keeping himself from apologizing for the futile argument they’d had.

“S’that why you’re asking?” Travie asked suddenly in his quiet voice that still reverberated around the room. “About the subscriptions? Looking to rub one out, Saporta?”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Don’t need to,” he said cheekily, “I’ve got myself a date to Hogsmeade. Have you?”

Travie laughed. “Aren’t ‘dates’ a bit third year?”

“You only say that because you weren’t featured on the ‘Do Loo’.”

Travie snorted. “Why would I want my name plastered in the birds’ lavatory as proof that one of them would ‘do’ me?”

“Because then you wouldn’t have to sneak in naughty magazines?”

Travie ignored him, eyes still scanning the letter (and slightly squinting curiously across one word). “Who’re you going to Hogsmeade with, anyways?”

“William Beckett.”

He frowned. “Never heard the name? Who’s his father?”

Gabe shrugged. “You wouldn’t know him. Both his parents are Muggles.”

“You sure he’s safe?”

“What do you mean?”

“You saw that post talking about the purge.”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Attention-seeking gits, more like.”

Travie didn’t respond, completely immersed in his letter. And Gabe, tired of sitting in the silence, pulled back the curtains of his four-poster and willed himself to fall asleep as the rain droned on and on, humming against the nearby glass.

 

(Tuesday)

 

Exhausted and energized by nothing more than the three cups of coffee he guzzled down at breakfast, Gerard made his way from the Great Hall to the library where he had the opportunity to spend his free period perusing books for his fourteen inch essay on Animagis for Transfiguration. It wasn’t due until Friday, but Gerard had nothing better to do with his free time. He didn’t have that many friends, and the drawing he was sketching of the boy from the Albert Dock had frustrated him so (as he was sure he was forgetting a crucial feature of the boy’s shadowy face, but he just couldn’t place it). 

“Oi! Gee!”

Gerard turned around in his tracks to see his brother, Mikey, jogging towards him. There were crumbs on his robes from breakfast and a stain that looked like pumpkin juice on his trousers. Gerard suppressed the urge to laugh.

“How’s cla--” Gerard’s casual greeting to his brother was interrupted as Mikey snapped.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, Gee?!”

Gerard blinked. “G-going to the library?”

Mikey ignored him. “Merlin’s sake, don’t you think before you act?! Don’t you care that people will start talking? The Ways are already the laughing stock of the community!”

“Um….”

“What the hell is going through your head?!”

Gerard bit his lip, still rather unsure of the conversation. “Er-- I’m not allowed to finish my essay?” he tried.

“What?!”

“My essay,” Gerard clarified. “That’s what I’m doing. Am I not supposed to be?”

Mikey looked as though he were trying to restrain himself from yanking his hair out. “This isn’t about the sodding essay!” Gerard had never seen his brother this furious before. “This is about you gallivanting around the castle with the likes of Frank Iero!”

Gerard blinked again and frowned. That made much more sense than Mikey being bent out of shape over his brother finishing a class essay. The only thing was, Gerard wasn’t quite sure why it made much more sense or why his brother was bent out of shape about this. No one seemed to really know anything about Frank Iero, anyways. He was handsome and mysterious; girls wanted to date him, and boys wanted to be him. However, there was a certain amount of fear associated with his name, probably (or so Gerard conjectured) having to do with his reputation as a troublemaker. And Frank Iero’s reputation had nothing to do with the silly pranks Alex Gaskarth and his friends initiated; Frank Iero’s reputation had everything to do with duels and fights and anything in between.

But as far as the one-on-one interaction between them went, Gerard could not find a single reason to be afraid of this boy so many revered.

“He’s nice,” said Gerard in return.

“Nice?” Mikey clenched his fists in hysteria. “Gerard, he attacked some kid two years ago!”

Gerard’s face dropped. “W-what?”

Mikey frowned, as though the sudden realization that Gerard had truly not known about this was just hitting him. “Y-you didn’t know. Fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I knew you didn’t have many frien--”

“I have friends.”

Mikey raised a brow. “Besides Alicia and I?” 

Alicia was Mikey’s girlfriend of two years- a nice Ravenclaw girl.

Gerard bit his lip. “I like being alone.”

Mikey shook his head. “W-well, that’s besides the point. The point is, Gerard, he’s dangerous. Don’t get mixed up in something beyond you.”

“W-what’d he do to that kid?” asked Gerard in a low, quivering whisper.

Mikey shrugged. “Don’t know a lot of the details. He erased his memory, though. Obliviated him- just like that.”

“Why wasn’t he expelled?”

“Because Dumbledore always opts to see the best in people. Guess he saw something in Iero no one else has.”

Gerard wanted to make a case of ‘if Dumbledore doesn’t think he’s dangerous, he mustn’t be.’ But the stern look on Mikey’s face kept his mouth closed.

Although he was the older brother, Mikey had his feet on sturdier ground than Gerard. He understood the inner workings of what was going on in their family (with regards to the Pureblood community) and he understood social sciences a whole lot more than the clueless Gerard who, like Dumbledore, would rather see the best in people.

However, the weight of Mikey’s words hit Gerard like a Bludger.

“He’s dangerous, Gee,” repeated Mikey, “Stay away from him.”

 

(3:00)

 

Around midday, Alex’s self-loathing had begun to pique. Out of boredom, he had finished homework for all his classes earlier that morning, had bewitched a suit of armor to shout out rude words to passerby, and had even visited the kitchen several times. However, fact of the matter was that Alex was bored. Pete and Ryan were both holed up in classes all day, as they were taking Ancient Runes.

Finally, succumbing to the nagging addiction, Alex climbed the stairs of the Astronomy Tower to cater himself with a much deserved cigarette. But when he climbed to the top of the tower, he saw the one thing he had been trying to escape from, sitting on the ledge.

Gabe was sitting on the ledge, a cigarette poised between his fingers and smoke billowing from his mouth as it was caught by the autumnal breeze and carried away across the grounds. Below them, throngs of students filtered by en route to the greenhouses or back towards the castle, many spending the last nice days finishing homework by the lake or tickling the tentacles of the Giant Squid. Laughter echoed up towards the tower.

“Er--hey,” said Alex lamely, standing in the doorway. “Mind if I bum one?”

Silently, Gabe offered one of his Everlastings to his friend who took it and lit up, tossing the used match off the edge of the tower and standing hesitantly beside the boy.

“I’m not angry,” said Gabe finally.

Alex’s lips twitched into a smile. “Neither am I.”

“This war is heavy shit,” continued Gabe. It went unspoken that Gabe still didn’t believe Alex’s words, but Alex didn’t want to hold that against his best friend.

“It’s been a week,” agreed Alex, finally sitting beside his friend like nothing had happened between them.

“I’ve got a date to Hogsmeade.”

“Oh?”

“With William Beckett.”

“Is this a pity date?”

Gabe shook his head and inhaled deeply before releasing the smoke back to the wind. “Nah. I already cleared his record. Did more than enough for him. This is just a date.”

“Do you fancy him?”

Laughing, Gabe rolled his eyes. “Asks the bloke with a girlfriend, even though he fancies his teammate.”

Alex laughed, “Never said any of this was going to be easy.”

“No,” said Gabe, quietly contemplative. “No, it isn’t.”

 

(Wednesday, or Victim #1)

 

It began on Wednesday.

William was wandering around the corridors, buying time before History of Magic. Sisky and Butcher hadn’t shown up to breakfast, nor where they in the dormitory when William woke up. To say he had been lonely that entire morning would be an understatement. Although William very much liked to spend time with himself, he couldn’t help but yearn for the company of his best friends whenever the choice was given to him.

As it happened, that morning he was very much alone and very much preoccupied with his racing thoughts.

He thought namely of Gabe Saporta, who had spontaneously asked him to Hogsmeade. In his entire fifteen years, William had never once been asked to Hogsmeade. He’d never kissed anyone, never held hands, and he’d never even had what could be considered an intimate hug. This was something completely different.

Not to mention, William had just been asked by Gabe Saporta- the notorious playboy of Hogwarts. Half of him remained skeptical that this was nothing more than a laugh for Gabe and he was probably not going to show up to their date at all; but the other half of him retained a deep longing that maybe this was an actual date. William didn’t necessarily fancy Gabe or anything like that, but the idea of being on a date made his heart skip a beat.

There was just something about Gabe Saporta that wasn’t really William’s type. It wasn’t his highly extroverted character or his troublemaking. It wasn’t even his cheeky tongue or snarky insults that he’d heard the other boy use on people in the corridors. Gabe was a Pureblood, and William was not. That much was evident. Normally he wouldn’t mind, but the war and the flyers had sent his guard up all around until William was sure that he was protected at all costs.

He had a nagging feeling that Gabe didn’t buy into blood purity, but his surname still rang like an omen in William’s ears.

“Oi, Bill!” William turned around and almost wished he didn’t.

Sisky and Butcher were running towards him. They were both red in the face, panting, and looked incredibly tousled. Sisky’s robes were hanging off his one shoulder, and Butcher’s tie was still undone and hanging uselessly around his neck. 

“Yeah?”

“You’ve got to come. Quick!”

“I’ve History of Magic in ten minutes.”

Sisky shook his head. “Forget that. It’s Courtney, Bill. She’s been attacked.”

\---

What happened was more than evident. The propaganda posters from last week had been solid in their threats: the purge had begun. William was excused from all his afternoon classes to sit at his sister’s bedside. He had originally been her only visitor, but as she droned in-and-out of consciousness Madam Marsh had pitied the lonely William and allowed Sisky and Butcher to remain at his sides whenever they were free (William would absolutely not let them skip classes and meals to sit with him, no matter what the case). 

He held his sister’s fragile hand in his. Every so often she twitched in her magically induced sleep, and that only prompted William to grip her hand tighter. He fought back tears that periodically threatened to spill and whispered sweet nothings to her that only a brother could do.

A letter was sent home, of course. William knew his mother would be frantic, but he had an inkling their father would hardly care. He’d curse up a storm about this magic bullshit and demand that Courtney be pulled from school immediately.

However, as far as Madam Marsh could tell, Courtney would be fine. A special healer employed by the Ministry of Magic would also be arriving to check how Courtney was doing because there were some inconsistencies with her symptoms and the believed spells that had been used. Madam Marsh was under the impression that no illegal curses had been used, and she was right about that. But there was something rather strange about Courtney’s symptoms.

Originally, they had found her in a pool of her own blood. Thrice they had tried to patch up the wound, but it was dark magic in its very nature as it wouldn’t simply patch up. Eventually, Slughorn had clotted the wound with a homemade remedy of his, but the ointment had to be applied several times while they worked frantically to find a proper cure. Hence, the Ministry of Magic was being sent in.

Through her bouts of consciousness, Courtney had managed to mention that she had not seen her attacker nor could she remember the curse he had uttered towards her.

Hopefully, the professional healer would be able to determine her wounds and concoct a remedy.

William was dozing off around the fifth hour of sitting beside her bed when a light touch on his shoulder woke him up. He started and blinked his eyes, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“How’re you holding up?”

William’s eyes widened. “How’d you know I was here?!”

“Word travels fast in this school,” was all Gabe could offer as he pulled up a seat and sat beside William.

William stiffened substantially. “I-I’m fine,” he said, “ _She’s_ fine.”

Gabe grimaced. “Things will get better.”

“I didn’t think it would actually happen,” whispered William, “I knew prejudices were running high, but I didn’t actually think the war would come to Hogwarts.”

“War is hell,” Gabe said, “and this is just the beginning.”

William felt sick and couldn’t continue the conversation as he held onto his sister’s hand for dear life. Gabe didn’t speak, but he sat beside William for a long time. And for some reason, that was comforting enough for him.

 

(Thursday, or Victim #2)

 

The news of what happened to Courtney Beckett spread throughout the school like wildfire. There were whispers in the corridors everywhere, and younger students walked along in tight-knit groups, almost afraid that they were going to be next. It just so happened, however, that the next victim was attacked on her way to the lavatory in the early hours of the morning when the rest of the castle was asleep.

Austin Carlile sat very much alone that morning, though, as he idly chewed his toast and marmalade and stirred his tea absentmindedly. A book was propped up against the jug of pumpkin juice as he read it for his classes that morning. He was waiting patiently for an owl from his mother. After being called back from holiday, Austin was growing increasingly worried of his mother.

Last night, Austin had stayed up late waiting for Alan to return to the dormitory. He had snuck out late at night to meet with Maddie in an empty classroom. Austin had an inkling his friend was aiming for a snog, but the more and more he thought about it, the more he knew that wasn’t Alan’s style. Alan respected his girlfriends.

Internally, Austin cringed at that last word.

Maddie Carina was lovely, and she was almost perfect for Alan Ashby. Jealousy was the only thing keeping Austin from liking her. It was selfish and horrible of Austin to wish ill will towards his best friend’s relationship; but Austin had never claimed to be perfect.

In fact, sometimes Austin thought the only reason he had the merits of a decent human being was because of Alan. Alan made him human in the most basic of sense. He made him feel, and that was the most human thing Austin could ever imagine.

“Aus!” A blur of ginger hair rushed by Austin, but it didn’t take the usual seat across from him and swipe his toast. Instead, Alan nearly tackled Austin to the ground, hands shaking and voice wavering.

“Alan, wotcher?” asked Austin, almost playful in tone.

“Aus, you have to come with me! Quick!”

Austin blinked. “What?”

“It’s Maddie, Aus.” Alan swallowed. “She was attacked.”

 

(Curfew)

 

Just as the case with Courtney Beckett, so did news of Maddie Carina’s attack run rampant through the school. The faculty was trying desperately hard to continue daily routines until the more professional healers came to a conclusion of the wounds. Meanwhile, security measures were being taken in the halls: prefects were given more power if a duel would ever arise and wands were strictly prohibited from being out of students’ pockets while they weren’t doing class work. The Auror, Bellamy, had also taken up residence in Hogwarts and had been given a spare room for his office temporarily.

Patrick tried not to ponder this so much as he sat in the library studying.

It scared him because he was a Muggle-born. But he also wondered how he had ever provoked someone else in order to warrant an attack upon himself. The rational side of him tried very hard to seer that through his mind; however, he sat there for hours going around in circles as he tried to think what someone could do to warrant an attack like that. Even the most heinous person, in his opinion, did not deserve the dark magic unleashed upon Courtney and Maddie.

He tried to ignore the creeping thoughts in the back of his mind and focus on _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ in order to finish identifying the properties of the ingredients of the Polyjuice Potion for Slughorn. Patrick wasn’t particularly a potions extraordinaire, but this he could do.

“Evening, Trickster von Stump,” a posh voice drawled in his ear all of a sudden.

Patrick jumped, let out a yelp that caused Madam Pince to glare at him with her hawkish eyes, and turned around to see Pete Wentz standing behind him with a large smile on his face and eyes crinkled up in delight.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Patrick in a whisper.

Pete shrugged and slid into the empty seat. “What are you doing here?” he countered, “Isn’t it nearly curfew?”

“I’m studying,” said Patrick hastily, turning a page in his book for emphasis.

“I was, too.”

Patrick snorted derisively without meaning to.

Pete ignored that, chipper as always. “I’m actually here to escort you back to your common room.”

“I’m not nearly done with my work.”

“What is in this library that’s not accessible back at Hufflepuff?”

“Peace and quiet,” muttered Patrick.

Pete sighed, “Look, I’m not beating around the bush, Patrick. A whole lot of rubbish has been going on. I-I know you’re Muggle-born. I want to make sure you get back to your common room safely. According to the posters, the purge doesn’t end until tomorrow.”

Patrick exhaled deeply through his nose. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been expecting this. He wasn’t sure if he was upset that Pete thought he couldn’t handle himself or grateful that Pete had shown such an interest in his safety.

“How’d you know I was here?” asked Patrick curiously.

Pete smiled enigmatically. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

Patrick chuckled, “Pretty sure I’m just as magical as you.”

“Oh?” Pete beamed before fishing in his robe pocket and producing a pack of ordinary Muggle playing cards from within them. “Have a go, then.”

“What do you want me to do?” Patrick asked skeptically as he eyed Pete’s hands shuffling the cards rapidly.

“Pick a card.”

Pete held out the cards allowing Patrick to pick from it.

“Now look at the card. Remember it. And put it back.”

Patrick stared at the jack of diamonds before placing it back into the deck and watching Pete reshuffle the deck. Still not looking at the cards, he flicked through them one-by-one until his fingers lingered on a particular card for a moment longer. Then, Pete grabbed the card from the deck and held it up, staring straight into Patrick’s eyes. “Is this your card?”

Patrick’s eyes were so enamored in the deep layers of Pete’s eyes that he almost forgot to glimpse at the card. Pete’s eyes were hazel; they were a kaleidoscope of champagne and honey and pale chartreuses. They were round and amiable and expectantly waiting Patrick’s reply.

His reply came out as a rather surprised yelp as Pete was holding the jack of diamonds in his hands.

 

(Friday, or Victim #3)

 

The pale Friday morning of September hung gloomy in the sky across Hogwarts. Pale grays and smoky clouds swirled around the sky as though threatening to rain down upon the slick dewy grounds that Ryan trudged across. He had traded his robes for a secondhand sweater and a pair of jeans that hung loosely around his hips, held up with the aid of a belt wrapped tightly around. Once or twice, he tripped on the cuff of his trousers before finally having the wit to tuck them into his boots, lacing them up thoroughly.

He strode over to the Quidditch Pitch, broom gripped tight in his hands, and reminiscing with a certain kind of fondness over his last (and only) lesson with Brendon Urie.

Brendon had been something new and refreshing. He wasn’t like Alex or Gabe or Pete. Brendon was overly popular, and he didn’t feel like someone Ryan had to live up to. All three of his best friends were very extraordinaire in their very beings: Alex was at the top of the year, Gabe was renowned simply from his last name but he had the talents to back it up, and Pete was so bookishly smart that sometimes Ryan thought he needed a good thwack in the back of the head. He wasn’t envious of his friends’ talents, by any means, but it was entirely to refreshing to meet someone who didn’t think along the lines of comparing Ryan to his mates.

He liked Brendon, he really did. His laugh was musical and tinkling, even with the rush of the wind flitting by Ryan’s ears as they soared through the air. His grip was secure and tight on Ryan whenever he had momentarily wavered on the broom in midair. In fact, Brendon Urie almost seemed ethereal with his pouted lips and bourbon eyes and prominent brows that were nearly hidden by his constantly windswept hair.

Ryan held the broom, looking around for any signs of Brendon to be arriving. When he noticed none, he mounted the broom with shaking legs and closed his eyes. He wanted Brendon to trudge across the grounds to see that Ryan was drifting along the grounds, all thanks to Brendon helping him conquer his fear.

All he had to do was kick off.

He gripped the broom tighter.

He slammed his eyes shut and counted to ten.

He took a deep breath….

“Ryan!”

Before Ryan could so much have moved he saw Brendon sprinting towards him. He was in his school robes and looked as though he’d just woken up. His hair was flyaway in all directions, his eyes were heavy, and a hearty yawn issued from his mouth as he reached Ryan.

“I was about to--”

“Ryan, I’m sorry. We’ll have to rain check. I can’t teach you today.”

“Oh.” Ryan felt his heart plummet to his stomach, he wasn’t sure why. He slid off the mounted broom and stood gauchely beside it.

“It’s nothing you did,” said Brendon in his motorboat voice that puttered on. “It’s just- Merlin, Ryan- there’s been an attack. It was Professor Walker this time.”

\---

That Friday evening, a crudely drawn scoreboard had been charmed onto the wall behind the house point hourglasses. Grimly, it read: _Team Iero: 00 / Team Pedicone: 03_.

 


	9. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long to make, and I apologize if it seems subpar in quality. I've been swamped with college work and midterms. 
> 
> Also to be noted, all the medical language was taken directly from the Medical News Today website and is not mine.

The warm and inviting September weather slowly evolved into a gloomy October, where the colorful leaves-- the sienna browns, the brilliant yellows, somber reds, and lazy yellows-- wilted from the trees and lay dead on the ground, crunching beneath students’ feet. Even the blue skies died and birthed gray shades that loomed upon the horizon and sent despairing tones across the grounds. Onslaughts of clouds swirled above veils of fog, and the dewy grass squelched under feet that avoided the crippled leaves as students made their way towards Hogsmeade for the first trip of the year. 

Days passed sluggishly since ‘the purge’ of Muggle-borns. Filch had scrubbed, at great length and with much muttering under his breath while Mrs. Norris lurked in the shadows waiting for the culprit of the vandalism to come forth, the scoreboard from the walls of the Entrance Hall. With the morbid reminder of that week gone and nothing but residue on Filch’s cleaning rags, the depressing gloom that had settled over the school lifted subtly. 

News in _The Daily Prophet_ remained the only negative reminder of the war and its dueling factions. However, even detailed reports had become scarce as lines blurred between Death Eaters and common folk. The mysterious flyer-maker had even gone on hiatus.

The calendar read 13 October, 1975.

 

 

(A Conversation)

 

 

Sat at the Great Hall as usual and stirring his porridge around languidly, Austin skimmed his Arithmancy book, desperately trying to gather information for an essay due after the weekend. The vast hall was nearly empty as most students had opted to spend their Saturday at Hogsmeade where they could spend their hours drooling over Honeydukes chocolate and butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks, or smuggling in products from Zonko’s that would irritate the caretaker. Austin’s interest in Hogsmeade had dissipated early on, and the only reason he continued to go once a year was at Alan’s begging.

Alan had chosen this Hogsmeade weekend to treat Maddie Carina to a date, as she had been released from the Hospital Wing almost a fortnight ago.

Slowly but surely, Austin had accepted Alan’s choice of significant others; and if Maddie was what made him happy, then Austin full-heartedly agreed. Besides, he didn’t have time for dates and snogs; he had to make his mother happy and work his way into a promising career as a full-fledged Auror. More often than not, Alan’s voice crept in his head and whispered, “ _Introduce a little anarchy_.”

Austin shivered.

Even if Austin had time to have lengthy snogs and dates that involved hand-holding, there was hardly any opportunity for someone like him. For someone who was of mismatched proportions (a long neck and large nose, long arms and even longer legs; at least once a term, a first year asked whether he was a giant or not) and very little facial aestheticism (he had a sharp and angular bone structure, among other discrepancies). Alan deserved someone like Maddie.

“Hullo, Austin,” a soft voice, almost timid in its nature, said to his left.

Startled, Austin nearly knocked over the jug of pumpkin juice, which elicited laughter from the voice. He looked to his left only to see Maddie Carina sitting beside him in all her lovely glory.

Her dark hair fell about her face in loose tangles that framed the photogenic structure of her cheekbones. Expanses of velvety skin was covered in assortments of make-ups that she did not need, from rosy red lipstick to pale gold shadow that, nestled snug beneath her arched brows, illuminated the stormy greens of her eyes. On the thirteenth of October, Maddie looked like a princess.

Austin stuttered, “H-hullo, Maddie. A-aren’t you s’posed to be in Hogsmeade with Alan?”

She smiled at his name. “I wanted to talk to you before I meet with him.”

He only just noticed Alan’s blue-and-bronze scarf wrapped loosely around her neck.

“What d’you need?”

She smiled again, and Austin noticed the poisoned apple shade of red outlining her pretty, petal mouth. “You’re Alan’s best mate, right?”

He nodded, puzzled.

“I was wondering whether or not he’s a jealous bloke?”

Austin blinked, still rather confused. “I don’t understand.”

She sighed, “After my attack, my folks thought it best if I stay at home for the Christmas holidays. Safety precautions and them worrying, all that…. The only catch is my parents are rather cozy with my ex’s parents. He’s already out of Hogwarts. I was wondering how Alan would take the news that I’d be spending the holidays with him?”

“Only if you fancy this other bloke, I’m sure.”

Maddie snickered, “Austin, you know this shite’s not that simple. As awful as it sounds, Alan’s going to feel very insecure, I think.”

“Well, why don’t you invite him over for the hols?” Austin decided not to mention that Alan usually spent Christmas with him and his mother. “If he meets this bloke, maybe he won’t get jealous?”

“You positive?” Maddie asked, a flawless smile growing on her face.

Austin nodded. “Y-yeah. Er-- who’s this other bloke, anyways?”

“His name’s Ronnie. Ronnie Radke.”

Austin’s jaw dropped. “The Beater for the Tutshill Tornadoes?”

She frowned. “You’ve heard of him?”

“Blimey, that’s your ex-boyfriend?!”

“We grew up together!” Maddie exclaimed, biting her lip. “You don’t think Alan will be jealous?”

Austin couldn’t even string together a sentence as he thought of how, come Christmas, he and Alan would be in the same boat, for once: in love and in loathing of it.

Wickedly, something felt settled inside his stomach.

 

 

(A Near Accident)

 

 

For the first time in weeks, Ryan Ross stood in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch, clutching a borrowed broom and shivering in his thin jumper. The blustering October winds blew about him, and his knobby knees shook at the slight tremors. Gabe and Alex always joked that Ryan was nothing more than a paper airplane, and the wind might carry him off at any given second. Pete always snorted derisively and commented how Ryan ate everything in a five mile radius; there was nothing wrong with him.

Brendon had rescheduled their flying lessons, and this was the first time either boy had time to fit in the extracurricular in their schedules. Unfortunately, Ryan was unable to go to Hogsmeade with Pete and Alex, but they both promised him an abundance of sweets upon their return. The longer Ryan thought about missing out, he felt even worse because this meant Brendon had opted to miss the Hogsmeade trip in favor of flying lessons. That made Ryan’s stomach turn, and he wasn’t sure whether it was in a positive or negative way.

“‘Lo, Ryan!” Brendon said, seeming to appear out of thin air.

Ryan stirred out of his thoughts and jumped, clutching the broomstick tighter.

Brendon was wearing a pair of tight (too tight, Ryan thought) trousers. The length of his shin was covered in his knee-high boots. A scarlet and gold team jersey clung to his body, the hem of it flapping around with the breeze. Brendon was smiling his usual toothy smile that Ryan, even in such a short period of time, had suddenly grown accustomed to.

“You ready, Stick?” asked Brendon.

Ryan opened his mouth to say ‘yes’ but what came out was: “W-what’s Stick?”

“You,” said Brendon, still smiling.

“Why?”

“Because you look like a stick,” said Brendon.

Ryan shook his head. “No-- why do I have a nickname now?”

Brendon shrugged. “Everyone on the Quidditch team gets a nickname. Mine’s Casper.”

“Why?”

Brendon shrugged again. “Ask Alex. He’s the Captain.”

Ryan shook his head. “But I’m not on the Quidditch Team.”

“Not yet,” grinned Brendon wickedly.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Try-outs are at the end of the month. I can hardly fly, still!”

“You’ll be fine,” Brendon assured him, mounting his own broom and kicking off. From the air, he sent Ryan a taunting look, “Think you can keep up?”

Still shivering from the cold, Ryan tried to ignore the heat creeping up on his face as Brendon stared at him intently. The way his thick brows knitted together, and his walnut eyes seemed to skim over Ryan in a single glance from that height. The way he gripped the broom with sure fingers and the way his hair blew with the breeze. He kicked off from the ground, alone on his broom, and let out a yelp as his broom began to tilt.

“Loosen up!” called Brendon, “You’re tense and tipping to one side.”

“I-I know that,” stammered Ryan helplessly.

He had thought that flying would be easier as he had slowly let his fear of falling dissipate. But without Brendon accompanying him on the broomstick, he felt vulnerable.  
“I’m coming to show you how to sit on your broom,” shouted Brendon, “Stay there.”

“Nah, I think I’ll pop in to the Three Broomsticks and have myself a cuppa!” shrieked Ryan in fear and agitation as his broom rolled again, and his stomach turned with it.

“Blimey, Stick,” Brendon laughed as he glided smoothly in front of Ryan’s pivoting broomstick. “You’re tenser than a virgin.”

Ryan’s eyes widened and felt the color of red rush to his face again. He bit his lip.

“Grab my hand,” offered Brendon.

As Ryan was slowly revolving in midair, he could make out Brendon’s hand, stagnant in the sky. His hand was ghostly pale, noticeable against the dark gray of the sky, as though an angel had descended to offer Ryan another chance at life. With trembling fingers, he reached out and grabbed the hand.

Immediately, he stopped spinning. Brendon’s calm demeanor and grace on a broomstick kept them still and in midair. He felt dizzy from the turbulent ride and only gripped Brendon’s hand tighter, despite his assured safety. He slammed his eyes shut to alleviate the queasy feeling in his stomach.

“Okay, there?”

“Y-yeah,” Ryan panted. “See? I am lousy.”

“Because you get scared. You’ve got to let that go… like last time.”

Behind his closed lids, Ryan could see he and Brendon on the same broomstick together, Brendon’s melodic laugh in his ear like the plucking of lyre strings. Ryan hoped the stinging of the wind would justify how flushed his face was….

“I don’t even want to play Quidditch,” stated Ryan. “I’m just… lonely.”

“What d’you mean?”

He shrugged. “Alex and Gabe are always involved in activities… or in detention,” Ryan added thoughtfully, “and Pete’s always stuck in prefect duties. I’m bored.”

“I’m trying to help,” said Brendon.

“I know.”

“D’you want to fly… or not?”

Ryan bit his lip. He thought of saying ‘no’. And then, he thought of not seeing Brendon. He thought of them parting their separate ways. “Yes. Yes, I want to do this.”

Brendon smiled, hand gripping Ryan’s even tighter than before. Jubilantly, he said, “Come along, Stick.”

 

 

(A Proposal)

 

 

It had been three weeks since they had seen each other.

Twenty-one days. Over five hundred hours. Wasted minutes and seconds tossed to the void.

Holed up in the library, reading an old medical dictionary he’d found at a secondhand shop along the wharf, Gerard heeded his brother’s warning not to see anymore of Frank Iero. It wasn’t exactly hard, as both parties stayed mostly to themselves. Gerard continued to draw the mysterious boy from the docks who had hidden behind a cloud of smoke, and he assumed Frank was hiding behind the greenhouses nursing an addiction. 

After frustratingly giving up on his drawing again (Gerard simply couldn’t get the sneering curl of the boy’s upper lip quite right, nor remember with much clarity his eyes), Gerard had settled into the deserted library with the bulky dictionary in his lap, turned to page 167, and read:

_Cancer is a class of diseases characterized by out-of-control cell growth. Cancer harms the body when damaged cells divide uncontrollably to form lumps or masses of tissue called tumors…. Programmed cell death is called apoptosis, and when this process begins to break down, cancer begins to form. Unlike normal cells, cancer cells do not experience programmed cell death and instead continue to grow and divide._

_Symptoms can be created as a tumor grows and pushes against organs and blood vessels. As cancer cells use the body’s energy and interfere with normal hormone function, it is possible to present symptoms such as fever, fatigue, excessive sweating, anemia, and unexplained weight loss…._

“There you are!”

Gerard nearly dropped his book as a voice in the silent library startled him. Instead, he slammed the book closed as though caught with illicit materials. 

Professor McGonagall stood over him, her usually pursed lips split into a warm smile, and her eyes almost pitying the lonely boy in the library. “I’ve been looking for you, Mr. Way.”

“Afternoon, Professor,” said Gerard quietly.

“I apologize for asking, but I know you are an excellent student of mine, Mr. Way,” she said, “and I was hoping you’d be able to assist me in tutoring some students who are having problems passing my class and are in danger of failing their N.E.W.T.s.”

“Oh.” Gerard nodded quickly. He thought of how bored he was, reading medical jargon all the time, no matter how interesting he found it. This would prove to be a perfect distraction from thinking about the boy at the docks, or Frank Iero, who he was forbidden from seeing anymore. “Of course, Professor. Anything to help.”

“Thank you, Mr. Way,” she said with much gratitude and pride in her voice, as though addressing a grandson one is rather fond of. “You are available on Tuesday nights, after dinner, I assume?”

He nodded.

“Excellent!” she clapped her hands together. “There’s one student in particular I was hoping you’d be able to get through to. I simply can’t find a way to motivate him. But he’s your age, so I’m hoping maybe he’ll be able to make a real connection with you and show more interest in the class work.”

“Of course.” Gerard nodded along. “Er-- who is this? Do I know him?”

“Perhaps,” said Professor McGonagall, “He’s in your house. Do you, by any chance, happen to know a Frank Iero?”

This time, Gerard really did drop his book.

 

 

(A Cellar)

 

 

Together, in the dark, they sat on the crates, silently chewing and comprehending. It had only been a few minutes since the silence had begun to settle between them, as their keen ears were tuned upstairs, careful to make note of any approaching footsteps. When the humdrum of customers and the ringing shop bell proved to be an excellent cover for their conversation, they began to talk.

“Heard you’ve been fancying a bloke?”

“You’ve heard bollocks, then.”

Laughter. “I doubt that. I’m very in tune to the rumor mill, here.”

He rolled his eyes and snorted derisively. “You’re the source of most the rumors, here, Gaskarth.”

Alex laughed, tipping his head back, and nearly falling off the closed crate of Cockroach Clusters he was sat upon. Feeling bored of the crowded atmosphere of the Three Broomsticks, Alex and Pete had escaped all the noise to hide out in the Honeydukes cellar where they treated themselves with an abundance of sweets for their taking. They both, however, left a substantial amount of Galleons to cover what they’d taken by the end of the day. 

Ripping open a Chocolate Frog, Pete asked, “So where’d you hear that from?”

“Nowhere. I’ve just seen you ‘round with that Hufflepuff chap.”

“Patrick?”

Alex grinned. “Ah, so there _is_ a bloke?”

Pete rolled his eyes and tried to hide his blushing face. “Stuff it. Shouldn’t you be taking the mickey out of Saporta, anyways? He’s on an _actual_ date.”

Alex yawned dramatically. “I feel like I know more about Gabe’s prick more than he does.”

Pete snickered.

“What?!” Alex asked, affronted. “If you’ve heard the amount of times he goes on about his conquests. Thinks he’s got a king cobra, or something, inside his trousers.”

Pete broke into a fit of giggles. He felt lively, spending time with Alex that he hadn’t properly been able to do since term started. Not only were they from different houses, but their schedules were quite different; besides, Pete had been fixing a curious amount of attention upon Patrick, eager to show _someone_ he’s changed. 

Quietly, he told Alex this.

“So that’s why he looked so familiar,” breathed Alex, “He’s Stumpy!”

“Oi, don’t call him that!” scolded Pete.

“Sorry,” muttered Alex, idly picking through a bag of Bertie Bott’s.

Pete sighed, shoulders sagging. “I’m trying to apologize to him.”

“Why are you trying to hard?”

Pete bit his lip. “Sick of tallying up sins, I guess. Need to atone to someone.”

“You think reconciling with Stum-- _Patrick_ will make Martin come back?” Alex asked knowingly.

Pete nodded and blinked tears from his eyes. He liked that Alex understood the belief in a higher power, unlike Gabe who laughed at the idea. He liked that Alex understood redemption.

“Don’t understand why you do this to yourself, Pete,” said Alex, “You’re a good bloke-- best one I know, and granted I know quite a lot. You’re not the reason Martin’s gone. Why do you want forgiveness so much?”

“Don’t we all?” choked Pete. “Don’t we all want to be forgiven?”

Alex bit his lip and chewed thoughtfully on a trout-flavored bean. He couldn’t argue with that every time he thought of Jack Barakat and what had happened inside that broom cupboard.

 

 

(A Pair of Wanderers)

 

 

“You’re making fun of me!”

“Oh no,” he snickered, “I’d be much too frightened to tease a Hufflepuff.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” William demanded.

Gabe shrugged, a smile twitching in the corner of his lips. “Dunno. Hasn’t natural selection supposed to have weeded you out yet, or summat?”

William stuck his tongue out. “Surprised someone like you knows anything about natural selection.”

“You’ve pegged me wrong, love,” taunted Gabe, “I’ve been in Muggle Studies for three years.”

William raised a condescending brow. “Is it innate curiosity, or the rebellious rush you get tinkering with plugs?”

“Nah, it’s the telly,” said Gabe with a bark of laughter.

William joined in, and their laughter carried them out of the Three Broomsticks, where the two had enjoyed some butterbeer and the comforting warmth of taking shelter from the brutal wind that was now attacking the small village.

All in all, William thought this date was rather too good to be true. His sister had been let out of the Hospital Wing a fortnight ago. She had told William that whatever curse had been used was not a recorded spell, nor was it an Unforgivable. It was simply dark magic that had created a nasty gash and nearly bled her out. While no Muggle-borns had been attacked since, the Auror Bellamy had taken up permanent residence until the culprits were apprehended. Hopefully, his presence warded off any future attacks, as even the mysterious flyer-writer had gone on hiatus.

Out in the nipping October cold, William rewrapped his scarf and hoped to shield his face from the wind’s stinging bites.

“Fancy a fag?” asked Gabe, already reaching into his pocket and pulling out the pack.

“Not here,” said William hastily, glancing around at the bustling crowds on either side of them.

“Course not,” Gabe said, chipper, “We’ll head up to the Shrieking Shack.”

William frowned, but Gabe could not see behind the scarf. “Isn’t it haunted?”

“Nah, my mates and I been up there loads of times.”

“Been inside?” asked William.

“Well…no. Not yet, at least.” He noticed the doubt evident on William’s face and sighed. “I promise nothing will happen up there.”

Biting his lip, William thought what his sister would say. She would shrilly tell him not to do anything stupid or get himself killed. But the daring side of William didn’t even think heading up to the Shrieking Shack was dangerous. Loads of students did it. He supposed the only element of danger was the company he kept.

That was hardly his fault. Gabe had a certain wit and charm to him that William had never seen in anyone before. He also had an aura of danger and excitement that William couldn’t help but receive a rush from. With wicked relish, he thought how angry his father would be if he brought home this ‘chav’ boy.

They trudged up the pavement that slowly ended into a dirt trail, which climbed a hill, through a thicket of trees, and towards the clearing where the Shrieking Shack stood in all its haunted glory. Even from a distance, the boarded windows were recognizable and the crude animal scratches could be seen clawed into the wooded infrastructure.

Taking out two cigarettes, Gabe lit them both before handing one off to William, blowing a puff of smoke out with his next words, “Still scared?”

“No,” lied William.

“Y’know, Bilvy,” said Gabe, as he had been calling William throughout most of the date, despite the latter’s insistence otherwise, “I like you.”

William smiled around his cigarette, and ducked his head to hide it from Gabe. “Yeah?”

“I do,” Gabe confirmed, “I’m glad your wretched cat ruined our prank.”

“Wretched?” William scoffed, “Santi is not wretched! Take that back!”

“What?!” exclaimed Gabe, “I’m not a cat person.”

“So you’re a kitten-killer?”

“What?!”

“There’s two kinds of people in the world, Gabe,” explained William, “People who like kitties, and people who murder them. So… which body of water have you been drowning pussies in?”

Gabe opened his mouth, spluttering, pale in the face until William broke out in a fit of laughter. Immediately, Gabe frowned. “Oi! You’re making fun of me.”

“Oh no,” said William, “I’d be much too frightened to tease a Slytherin.”

Gabe joined in on his laughter, giving William a playful shove and muttering ‘twatter’ under his breath.

“You’re mad,” he told William.

“The maddest,” agreed William.

They leaned against the gate surrounded the perimeter of the haunted house, finishing the rest of their cigarettes in a comfortable silence, each sneaking their own glances at the other. Unfortunately, neither of them snuck a glance towards the pair of eyes watching them in the woods.

 

 

(A Realization)

 

 

Swamped with Potions essays, for which Vic Fuentes had no talent at, the Ravenclaw boy opted to skiv off the first Hogsmeade weekend and hole up in the common room, finishing an essay for a class he understood abysmally. Thankfully, Tony decided to stay with him, even though he complained at length how they were missing out on all the savory, mouth-watering fudge that Honeydukes had to offer. Vic would’ve snapped had he not appreciated everything Tony had been doing to help him since Kellin’s absence.  
From leaving him chocolate and helping him make it to the Hospital Wing, Vic never truly had an opportunity to thank him for all those little things.

Since they were alone in the common room, and Vic was very nearly finished with his essay, he decided that now was the best time. “Er-- Tony, have I ever told you that you’re my best mate?”

“Probably.”

“But in all honesty,” Vic went on, “You’re fab.”

Tony raised a confused brow. “You haven’t turned into a poofter on me, have you, Vic?”

Vic rolled his eyes and chuckled, “No, you tit. I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me for what?”

“For everything you’ve been doing to help me,” said Vic.

Tony blinked in confusion. “Huh?”

“With my transformations.”

Tony continued to stare blankly.

Vic sighed, “You know, like leaving me chocolate and escorting me to the Hospital Wing.”

“You’ve been nicking my chocolate?!”

Vic’s eyes widened. How blunt did he have to make this? “No, Tony, you left it next to my bed.”

Tony shook his head. “Sorry, Vic. Sounds very nice and all, but doesn’t sound like me. I don’t share my chocolate.”

“Somebody left me chocolate,” muttered Vic, still not truly believing Tony’s denials. “Besides,” he added on, “you helped me to the Hospital Wing the night I passed out.”

“When did you pass out?!” exclaimed Tony, eyes widening with fear.

Vic grunted. If this was a joke, it wasn’t funny. “Stop taking the piss out of me,” he ordered.

“I’m not,” insisted Tony, blinking honest eyes, “When did you pass out?”

That was when it dawned on Vic: Tony wasn’t lying. Tony was a horrible liar, anyways. He always chewed on his tongue when he lied, and more often than not he’d break into fits of giggles because his lies always involved something preposterous. As the record stood, Tony’s teeth weren’t chewing anything, and he didn’t look remotely amused by the conversation they were having.

“Stop pulling my leg, Vic,” warned Tony in a low voice. “When did you pass out?”

“B-before my last transformation,” explained Vic. “I was on my way to the Hospital Wing. Passed out. Felt someone carry me there. I thought it was you.”

Tony shook his head. “Sorry, Vic. I’ve never carried you to the hospital.”

“But someone did!” insisted Vic.

“Wasn’t me,” said Tony apologetically, “You sure you weren’t delirious?”

“I didn’t imagine it.”

“Where did you pass out at?” asked Tony, leaning closer as though this were top-secret. “Couldn’t it have been a passing professor?”

Vic shook his head. He vividly remembered being inside the dormitory when it happened. He relayed this to Tony.

“So it had to be someone in our year, then?” Tony racked his brains. “There’s Ashby and Carlile. But it can’t have been them.”

The only other boy in their dormitory was the one whose name burned Vic’s tongue. Before Tony could even say it, he ran into the nearest bathroom and emptied his stomach into the toilet. Shaking his head, Vic began to choke and cry, trembling against the porcelain. “ _It can’t be_.”  


 

(A Secret, of Sorts)

 

 

When evening finally fell, students began to return slowly from the village. There was laughter and many red faces and sniffling noses as the October wind had chilled a majority of the student body to the bone. They discarded their coats and sat beside the fires, trying to keep warm with smuggled in butterbeer or cups of tea they brought up from dinner.

Spencer had returned from Hogsmeade with Dallon and Ian, who split up with him to catch some leftovers of dinner at the Great Hall. Meanwhile, Spencer had no intention of heading to Gryffindor Tower. While the outing with Dallon and Ian had been fun in its own right, Spencer couldn’t help but feel an air of emptiness inside his stomach.

He supposed this was due to the fact that Professor Walker had still not returned to teach since his attack. Spencer had avidly tried to visit him while he was in the Hospital Wing, but he was awarded no visitors. By the time visitors were allowed, he had been transferred to St. Mungo’s, as the curse was affecting him worse than the others due to his age and the location of the trauma (Spencer heard whispers that he’d been hit straight in the chest).

Every evening, Spencer knocked on Professor Walker’s office door, but no voice answered. Dismayed, he’d return to Gryffindor Tower and complain to Brendon who’d warn him to fancy some other chap instead of the Muggle Studies professor!

“But he’s so fit,” Spencer would whine in retaliation as though that were that.

Brendon would roll his eyes and comment how Spencer’s had more flings than Brendon had fingers.

Promptly, Spencer would thwack him with whatever was at hand (most often: a textbook).

Nearing Professor Walker’s office, Spencer began to play with his fingers, feeling the sweat on his palm. He wasn’t nervous about seeing Jon; he was afraid that the man would still be in St. Mungo’s. Perhaps he was most worried that he would never return and Spencer’s libido would famish.

The door towered above him threateningly as he raised his fist to rap upon the wood.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Spencer waited with baited breath for a reply.

Finally, a voice no louder than a church mouse, answered croakily, “Come in.”

Feeling both jittery and jubilant, Spencer entered the room, trembling. Professor Walker was crouched over his desk, looking tired but fine, and he looked as though he were scribing a letter.

“How’re you, Spencer?” he asked without affording the student so much of a glance.

Spencer stuttered, “J-just thought I’d pop in a-and see if you’ve returned….”

“Hasn’t Professor Cadmus been helpful with your studies?” asked Jon, and it took a moment for Spencer to realize the professor was teasing.

Letting out a laugh, Spencer allowed himself to take a seat. “You were out sick for long.”

Jon chuckled, “Being attacked will do that to you.”

Spencer flinched at his crudeness. “Y-you’re alright, then?”

“Hopefully,” Jon told him, “Madam Marsh has me under strict appointments to keep the wound together.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, if we don’t constantly reapply the Essence of Dittany, the wound might reopen.”

“So… the wound was like splinching?” asked Spencer.

“A bit,” said Jon, “The curse was darker magic, so it was hard to find an immediate cure. The Essence of Dittany is only to keep the wound treated and from scarring. It didn’t cure it at all.”

“What did?” asked Spencer.

“A curious concoction the Healers put together,” said Jon.

As he leaned over to sign his letter, Spencer noticed how tired the professor looked. His eyes were ringed with deep bags, and his face, covered with a patchy beard, looked gaunt as though he hadn’t eaten properly in days. He seemed clammy and a bit misplaced.

Pulling out the bar of chocolate he’d bought at Honeydukes, Spencer placed the candy on Jon’s desk. “I brought you something.”

Jon looked at it with surprise etched on his face. “Spencer, that’s expensive. I can’t accept that.”

“Take it,” urged Spencer.

Jon shook his head stubbornly.

Equally stubborn, Spencer unwrapped the bar of chocolate and broke it into half. “Here. It’s the least I can do.” Spencer handed him the piece, and Jon took it begrudgingly.

“You don’t have to do anything for me, Spencer. I’m your teacher.”

“You’re the best teacher I’ve ever had!”

Jon chuckled, “I doubt that.”

“It’s true. You actually care about your students. You’re magnificent! I think it’s rubbish that someone attacked you.”

“Well, who knew being a Muggle-born was to be a crime?”

Spencer shook his head and bit his chocolate spitefully. “It’s a crock of shite.”

Jon nodded, a smile ghosting across his lips at Spencer’s language. “Be that as it may, but politics governs everything, Spencer. Remember that.”

“Sometimes the politics are wrong! People just aren’t speaking up about it, but everyone knows! It doesn’t need to be said that killing Muggle-borns is wrong!”

Jon hummed in agreement. “Yes, but sometimes it does ill to rely in the silent majority, Spencer. Silence is a fragile thing. The smallest sound can break it.”

They sat there in silence, Spencer chewing thoughtfully on his chocolate and Jon cleaning up the ink that had begun to blot his desk. Finally, though, Jon noticed the time was nearing curfew and bade Spencer a good night.

Disappointed but not sure why, Spencer left. On his way out, from the corner of his eye, though, he saw Jon take a bite of the chocolate.  
Inside, Spencer swelled with joy.  
  



End file.
